
^^ 



%. 



y'ff-wii'y^^ « 






Was organized for the purpose of promoting Immigration, by 
reliable publications, making kno'wn the Resources, Advantages 
and Capabilities of the above named States. The Company has 
no^v on hand for free distribution, Books, Pamphlets and Maps, 
descriptive and statistical, giving detailed information of the 
State of Texas, Arkansas, or "Western Louisiana, ^vhich will be 
sent, postage prepaid, to all persons applying to 



B. G. DUVAL, Secretary, 

Austir / Texas. 



J. R.f VICTOR, Eastern Ma^ager^ 

' No. 243 Broadway, New 

WM. W. LANG, ¥r>esiden 

Leadenhall House, Leaden 
London. 






York. 



nd. 



^ 



/ 



Sou1:VvYreb-t€.Tn \\Ti m'\gr ^■t\ on t-am panu, ft\A.c.t\n,Ta>c. 



A PAPER 



ON THE 



Resources and Capabilities 



OF 





i ^^ 



READ Bf 
BEFORE TflE 

iRMER'S CLUB OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, COOPER UNION, 

New York, March 8th, 1881. 
»DGE, Prksident. B. H MARTIN Becketary. 



EXTJR^CT from: THE ]Vri]f>n:JXES. 

.1 of Dr. Lambert, a vote of thanks was unanimousl}' tendered Col. Lang 
and valuable paper on the Capabilities of Texas, and he was requested to 
deposit in the Archives of the Institute and for publication.' 



'WHICH IS APPENDED A BRIEF SUMMARY 

OF- THE 

of tlie Slate a: a M for Inpk 




SlUl^U^ 



A PAPER 

READ BY COL. LANG, OF TEXAS, 

BEFORE THE 

Farmers' Club, Cooper Union, New York City. 



In response to your courteous invitation, 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am 
here to say a few words witli regard to the 
natural resources and capabilities of Texas. 
it affords me no little pleasure, to stand in 
this presence — before the oldest and most in- 
fluential of American agricultural societies. 
A society which is a part of that larger and 
more catholic organization for the promotion 
of all learning, art and science — the American 
Institute. An institute which numbers 
among its Presidents the name of that pure- 
minded, large-hearted, sterling journalist and 
philanthropist, Horace Greeley 

Let me warn you in advance that my deal- 
ing to-day will not be with either elegant 
description or poetic imagery, but with hard 
facts and dry figures — facts and figures neces- 
sary to the comprehension of that mighty 
movement of population, which is now flow- 
ing southwestward. 

It is diflScult by the mere statement of square 
miles by the hundred thousand and acres by 
the hundred million to convey any just idea 
of the State which forms my theme this after- 
noon. It is only when we compare her with 
other States and nationalities that the mind 
rises to some appreciation of her magnitude, 
of her immense capabilities and of the glor- 
ious future that awaits the development of 
her limitless resources. 

When I tell you that Texas contains 274,356 
square miles, or 175,587,840 acres, I make a 
very prosaic statement, which carries with it 
very little appreciation of the actual fact that 
this State of Texas is as large as six such States 
as New York. In acres and square miles the 
Empire State of the South is six times the 
magnitude of the Empire State of the North. 

Place Maine, New Hampshire, Massachu- 
setts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut, 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 'Dela- 
ware, Ohio and Illinois close together, and 
the territory of Texas will cover and overlap 
them all 6,000 square miles. 

Should we divide Texas in the middle, the 
one-half will equal Great Britain and Ireland. 

Massachusetts supports a population of 186 
to the square mile; were Texas populated in 
the same ratio her census would be 51,030,316, 
which is equal to that of the whole United 
States. 

As we look a little further we shall see that 
if cold, bleak, rocky Massachusetts can sus- 
tain a population of 186 to the square mile, 
Texas, with her genial climate, her fertile 
soils and varied productions can do much 
more. 



As indicative of the rapidity with which 
her population is increasing I give the fol- 
lowing: 

In 1820 ihe population was 20,000 

. "1830 '' " " 35,000 

" 1840 " " " 60,000 

" 1850 " " " 212,592 

" 1860 " " " 601,039 

" 1870 " " " 818.579 

'' 1880 " '» " ... 1,592 574 

Texas contains about 9 degrees of longitude 
and 8 degrees of latitude, but her peculiar 
surface configuration gives her a much more 
varied power of production. All the produc- 
tions of the Temperate Zone, and many of the 
Torrid, flourish in Texas — cotton, all'the ce- 
reals and grasses, rice, sugar, tobacco, oranges, 
bananas, olives, guava. Texas produces, with 
almost equal ease, all the grains and meats 
that support life — the cotton and wool which 
clothe it — the fruits that, like those of Eden, 
are pleasant to the taste — and the tea and the 
silk, which are its luxuries. 

In 1850 the production of wheat was less 
than 50,000 bushels, and he who should have 
predicted its successful culture, in any save 
the counties of the extreme North, would 
have been regarded as a wild visionary. Yet, 
in 1878 the wheat crop was 4,000,000 bushds, 
and its production is now only limited by- 
market facilities. It ripens a month earlier 
than the wheat of more Northern States. In 
Centennial Year the first sack of Texas flour 
reached Galveston May 18th. It was sold at 
auction for a handsome sum and sent to the 
Emperor of Brazil ; while the price bought 
many sacks for the orphans in the Asylum. 

Texas wheat weighs from 62 to 68 pounds 
the measured, bushel, and flour made from it 
passes the tropics without danger of fermen- 
tation or souring. The balance of our trade 
in favor of Brazil is about thirty-five millions. 
Every dollar of which might be saved by in- 
creasing the production of Texas wheat and 
the exportation of Texas flour to pay for Rio 
coffee. A careful estimate shows that Texas 
can produce sixty-four millions of bushels, 
or one eighth of the entire wheat crop of the 
United States, without interfering with her 
other crops 

The total acreage of the nine principal crops 
of the United States — corn, wheat, oats, barley, 
rye, buckwheat, hay, potatoes and cotton — 
is 143,178,393 acres. Texas could produce 
all these and have a surplus of 32,309,447 
acres for other purposes. She could not only 
contain all the population of the United 
States, but she could raise all the principal 
crops for home consumption and foreign ex- 
port which they produce. 



TEXAS; HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES 



This is what Texas might do. Let us see 
what it is that she does do. 

Returns from sixty-eight shippmg points 
give the following aggregate results of Texas 
produce. While these figures do not reach 
the entire produ(;tion, they indicate its mag- 
nitude. 

Cot on, 951,093 bales Value, $38,043,720 

Cattle, 502,190 head " 8,241.903 

Horses, 37.8(50 " 473,250 

Wool, 14,.568, 920 pounds " 2,91:^,784 

Hides, 28.104,065 " 2,8lO,406 

Lumber and s r gles '* 1,349,691 

Wheat, 2,500,000 bushels.... " 2.375 000 

Cotton .s ed and oil cake " 506,063 

Suga ■ and molasses " 433,960 

Miscellaneous products " 672,^64 

$57,829/141 

These figures are for 1878; none later are 
available. 

I think the State can rival Louisiana in the 
production of sugar — South Carolina in rice, 
and can produce as many oranges as Florida, 
as much tobacco as Virginia and as much 
hemp as Kentuckv or Missouri. 

We produced in 1878, 951,093 bales of Cot- 
ton valued at $38,048,720. The world con- 
sumes about 12,000,000 bales annually, which 
Texas could grow on 19,000 square miles, 
or if Texas were to turn her attention to 
it, she could grow as much cotton as four- 
teen worlds like this consume. 

She can produce six million bales, which 
is half the world's consumption without in- 
terfering Avitli her other crops. 

The cattle interest ranks next after cotton. 
The Commissioner of Agriculture reports the 
number of cattle in Texas at 4,464,000 with a 
money value of 39.640,320. The number of 
cattle driven north over the trail was 257,431, 
which estimated at $13 each would have a 
money value of $3,846,603. The number of 
cattle shipped by rail was 244,765 head; these 
are valued at $20 each or $4,885,300, making 
the total number of cattle sold 502,176, with 
a money value of $8,241,903. 

Illinois is the only State which leads Texas 
in the number of Horses. Texas has 963.900 
horses valued at $21,331,107. During 1878, 
37,860 were driven north, these are valued at 
$12.50, or a total of $473,250. It will be seen 
that Texas horses do not command so high a 
price as the blooded stock which makes fast 
time in the Park, yet these same mustangs 
are not without many good qualities. They 
are generally half breeds of the pure mustang 
or wild horse, which itself came from gentle 
stock, having been introduced by the Spani- 
ards into Mexico, and turned loose to return 
to a state of nature. They are of Audalusian 
blood, which was more (^r less Arabic. Noth 
ing can equal their power of endurance, and 
although they are small, a good mustang will 
carry his rider fifty miles every day for a 
week, and require no better fare than he can 

father when staked out at night with a forty 
oot lariat. The Broncho stallions, which 
were exhibited in the circus some few yeais 
j\go attracting greatattention by their beautiful \ 
forms and surprising intelligence, were fine i 
mustangs. Where they came from I know | 
not, but all Texans who saw them recognized i 



the mustang in every form and feature. The 
mustang has a tendency to color — parti-col- 
ored specimens are found in every drove; 
with us the}^ are called calico or paint ponies. 
A few years since a northern lady set the 
fashion of driving these fancy-colored ponies 
to her park phaeton. An enterprising Van 
kee went to Western Texas, gathered up a 
drove of select specimens at a cost of about 
$25 each, brought them north, trimmed, 
trained and matched them, when they readily 
sold at from $500 to $800 the pair. Nothing 
but limited demand prevents such business 
from being very profitable. Texas is inferior 
to no country on earth for the splendid rear- 
ing and breeding of horses, and there is none 
in which horses are more free from disease. 
The high rolling lands and hard surface gives 
cup to the hoof and rigidity to the muscles. 

With equal breed she can produce speci- 
mens that will rival the finest Arabian blood. 

In 1860 Texas contained only 753,365 sheep; 
ten years latter these had decreased to 714,351; 
yet in 1879 she had advanced to the rank of 
the second wool-growing State, and had 
5,148,400 sheep valued at $9,730,476. Cali- 
fornia which alone leads her has 7,646,800 
sheep. In 1879 her wool clip was 14,568,920 
pounds, valued at $2,913,784. 

Notwithstanding the immense number of 
CattU sold on the hoof, the hides of those 
slaughtered amount to 28,104,065 pounds, 
with a money value of $2,810,406. I may 
mention incidentally that all Texas abounds 
with tanning materials, and every one of 
these hides might be profitably made into 
leather. There are a number of tanneries in 
various portions of the State, all of which' 
make excellent leather. The confederacy es- 
tablished tanneries in Texas, and a large por- 
tion of their army was supplied from them. 
In the last report of the Commissioner of 
Agriculture you will see an engraving and 
description of the Canatgre, a plant of Texas, 
which has been long used for tanning skins, 
both by white men and Indians. The root 
contains twenty-three per cent, of tannic acid. 
Our live Oak and mesquite are veiy rich in 
the tanning principle, and besides these forest 
trees we have an abundance of sumac. 

"We claim that the most extensive and val- 
uable pine, cypress, and live-oak forest now 
remaining uncut in North America is to be 
found in Eastern Texas and Western Louis- 
iana. Its value consists in its large yield per 
acre, the magnificent proportions of the trees, 
the quality of the timber, and its accessibility 
to the ever increasing markets on the wide 
prairies, stretching hundreds of miles to the 
westward, and to the Gulf ports for shipment 
to the markets of the world The yellow-pine 
lands of Southern Mississippi, Alabama, 
Florida and Georgia have been drawn upon 
heavily to supply the markets of the Eastern 
States and the ship-yards of England and 
Scotland for many years past; and the few 
tracts of valuable timber now remaining un 
culled are generally far removed from trans- 
portation advantages, and command a large 
price. 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



The yellow-pine of the South is increasing 
in demand, and becoming niore valuable each 
succeeding year, for the further reason that 
the white pine forests of the Northern States 
and Canada are fast becoming exhausted. 

The extent of the pine territory in the 
Northern States and Canada has been largely 
over-estimated, and its thin belts have been 
pierced through and through at many points 
by our brawny lumbermen in the different 
States. And the Canadian statesmen, who 
for many years talked of their unbroken for- 
ests of pine, reaching away back for hundreds 
of miles towards Hudson's Bay and the Polar 
Sea, have within the past year seen almost 
the last of their profitable "lumber limits" 
or blocks sold out. The choppers have 
reached the line of the scrubby white birch 
and balsam; and, with their axes upon their 
shoulders, they have been obliged to turn 
back to find new fields to conquer. Where 
will they go now ? We will tell them : Come 
with us to Texas, and we will show you, in 
the eastern portion of our State, a little tract 
of primeval forest not yet culled out, about 
the size of the State of New York. 

The trees are sound and thrifty, and rise 
often to the altitude of 150 and 175 feet; and 
often without a single crook or limb on the 
first 100 feet. The sap does not average more 
than 13^ inches, which is a great advantage 
over the pine of other districts. 

In Southeastern Texas there are 14 counties, 
aggregating an area of 11,493 square miles. 
This area is divided as follows : Coast prair- 
ies, 2520 square miles; miscellaneous timber, 
embracing white, overcup, Spanish red and 
black oak, beech, maple, elm, ash of three 
varieties, magnolia, black walnut, red cedar, 
black, yellow and white cypress, gum and 
various species of bay, an area of 3974 square 
miles; short leaf and hammock pine an area 
of 983 square miles; long leaf yellow pine, 
4466 square miles. 

This tree is the true turpentine producing 
pine, and in the course of time a large pro 
portion of the naval stores of the world will 
be drawn from Eastern Texas. The annual 
production of lumber is estimated at 160 mill- 
ion feet with a money value of $1,349,691, 

I have said nothing of the other forest trees 
of Texas. We have oak, walnut, hickory, 
pecan, mulberry, bois de arc, which is un- 
equalled for wagon and carriage building, 
the magnolia, and many others. No man, 
who has not seen the oleander and magnolias 
of Texas in full bloom. can appreciate the 
hight of grandeur to which floriculture can 
rise. The magnolia growing Heavenward 
near to a hundred feet produces thousands of 
flowers, each of which rivals in beauty the 
solitary blossom of the Victoi'ia Regina. 
While there is nothing so gorgeous as the 
oleander, not the sickly shrub of your North- 
ern conservatories, but the tall growing tree, 
all covered with blossoms of sunset hue. 

Mrs. Mary Holly, an accomplished Ken- 
tucky lady, who visited and wrote of Texas 
in 1837, when it was almost a wilderness, 
thus describes a Texas prairie: 



" It is impossible to imagine the beauty of 
a Texas prairie when in the vernal season; 
its rich luxuriant herbage, adorned with 
many thousand flowers, of every size and 
hue, seems to realize the vision of a terres- 
trial paradise. The delicate, gay and gaudy 
are intermingled in delightful confusion, and 
these fanciful bouquets of fairy nature form 
tenfold charms when associated with the ver- 
dant carpet of grass which modestly mantles 
around. 

"One feels that Omnipotence had conse- 
crated in the bosom of nature and under 
Heaven's wide canopy, a glorious temple in 
which to receive the praise and adoration of 
the grateful beholder, and cold indeed must 
be the soul from which no homage could here 
be elicited. Methinks the veriest infidel 
would have been constrained to bow and 
worship. " 

Texas prairies have contributed the Verbena 
to the store of floral beauties which adorn the 
gardens of the world. Here is its natural 
home. 

Our statistics of Sugar are not so satisfac- 
tory as we coiild desire, because no figures 
have been collated since 1878, which was a 
very unfortunate year, the late rains having 
almost ruined the crops. For this, however, 
we have accurate figures — 5,664 hogsheads of 
sugar, 12,244 barrels of molasses of money 
value $433,960. Our sugar lands are equal 
in extent and productiveness to those of 
Louisiana. 

At the last published reports there were six 
Cotton Seed Oil mills in the Statt. It is be- 
lieved that several others have been since 
constructed. The products of those six were 
valued at $506,063. It is but a few years 
since cotton seed had any market value. It 
was thrown away as waste. There is ample 
and profitable employment for twenty mills. 

Another source of large profit which is 
awaiting development is the pecan. The 
gathering of this delicious nut being usually 
done by boys, it may be denominated a minor 
industry, yet it is an amazingly profitable 
one. The nut always commands a ready 
sale, the demand being greater than the sup- 
ply. There is many an acre of land to be 
bought for a dollar which if planted with 
pecans would in ten years bring a hundred 
dollars. Pecans are purchased by the store- 
keepers at from $1.50 to $2.00 per bushel. 
There are no figures showing the amount of 
this industry, but that it is considerable is 
evidenced by the fact that San Antonio ships 
a half a million pounds of this favorite nut, 
and hundreds of thousands of bushels rot ol. 
the ground or are eaten by the hogs. 

One of the popular delusions regarding 
Texas is that no apples grow there — that it 
is not a fruit-growing country. This is a 
great error. Nearly all the fruits of both the 
Torrid and Temperate Zones flourish abun- 
dantly. Apples, pears, peaches, grapes, the 
berries, the banana, the orange and the olive 
all do well. Of apples, Texas exhibits speci 
mens fine as any. Of Summer appies. we 
have in perfection the Red Astrachan, Red 



8 



TEPAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES 



June, Julian, Summer Queen, Early Harvest, 
and Duchess of Oldenburg. Our Autumn 
apples are the Carolina ureening, Taunton, 
Topp's Fa\^orite, Buncomb and Carter's Blue. 
For Wmter use, the Romanite, Yates, Steven- 
son's Winter, Pryor's Red, Maverick (one of 
our ow^n children), Ben Davis, Canon Pear- 
main and Hacket's Sweet. 

Peaches are remarkably healthy in Texas 
and are productix'ie. Of these, the leading 
profitable kinds for market, in theorcler 
of ripening, from May 25, forward to 
November, are — Alexander, Wilder, Hale's 
Early, Yellow St. John, Harrison's Early, 
Mountain Rose, Amelia, large Early York, 
Early Crawford, Reeve's Favorite, Thurber, 
Oldmixon, Free and Cling, Crawford's Late, 
Stump the World, Columbia, Steadley, Pic- 
quet's Late, Nelson Cling, Salway and Lady 
Parham. 

Texas is truly the paradise of the grape. 
With the exc*^ption of a few varieties predis- 
posed to rot, all kinds hava gone beyond our 
expectations. Even the foreign varieties. 
Golden Chasselas, and several others of that 
class, have borne fine fruit for two or three 
years in open air But the Champion, Dela- 
ware, Martha, Elvira, Goethe, Brighton, 
Black Eagle, Wilder, Salem and Triumph 
have all done finely. Ives and Concord pro- 
duce enormous crops and sell cheaply — from 
three to ten cents a pound, w^hile the better 
grapes bring often as high as twenty-five to 
forty cents. The Champion, on account of 
its great earliness. in Northern Texas, twenty- 
five cents a pound. 

One grape — the Triumph — deserves more 
than a passing notice. It has now grown 
luxuriantly six years, bearing heavy crops of 
the largest of bunches — some weighing a 
pound and a half — the berries, maturing per- 
fectly, attaining the excellence of the Golden 
Chasselas, whick it much resembles, except 
being much larger in bunch. It astonishes 
all who see it, and sells at fancy prices, even 
when the market is glutted with common 
kinds. Here we have the excellence of the 
foreign with the vigor of the native. 

On^Galveston Island, Mr. Stringfellon has 
grown grapes that remind one of the miracul- 
ous pictures seen in old family Bibles, where 
Caleb and Joshua return from "spying out 
the land," swinging between them on a pole 
a bunch of grapes as large as a cask of wine. 

Strawberries are perfectly successful. Wil- 
son, Charles Downing, Sharpless, Miner's 
Prolific, Crescent, Cumberland and Captain 
Jack, have proven successful 

COAL. 

The presence of coal in the various locali- 
ties, and of more or less valuable quality, has 
been long known, but in the absence of rail- 
roads in tlie districts where the better quali- 
ties have been found, these deposits, their 
extent and definite value, are yet unknown 
from want of transportation that would ren- 
der mining profitable. Quite recently, on the 
lines of the Texas & Pacific and Central Rail- 
roads, coal of excellent quality has been 



found, and supplies in part the fuel for those 
roads. At a great many points in nearly 
every section of the State, and upon the banks 
of nearly evejy large stream, coal crops out, 
and is used by country blacksmiths in their 
forges, and at some points for fuel. On the 
Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Guadalupe and 
Rio Grande and their tributaries, croppings 
of anthracite and tertiary coal of the cannel 
variety are found. From the lower Rio 
Grande, where large beds are believed to 
exist, it is found at intervals all the way to 
the northeastern corner of the State, and it 
is supposed forms a continuous deposit the 
whole distance. It is highly probable that in 
the vicinity of the iron fields of Rusk, where 
the State proposes to develope the iron ores, 
found in such great abundance, the coal al- 
ready found will ultimately be proven valu- 
able in the furnace for making iron. But as 
a thoroughly reliable scientific research has 
not been^made by the State, the value of our 
coal beds may be merely suppositious. 

The Texas Trunk Railway passes through 
a coal field 200 miles long. The American 
Almanac estimates the Texas coal fields at 
20,000 square miles. Only three States pos- 
sessing a larger area. 

There is an abundant supply of copper in 
Archer, Wichata, Wilbarger, B-aylor, Haskell, 
Stonewall and other counties. It is nearly a 
pure sulphate, yielding 72.45 pure metal. 

It is found on the hillsides near the sur- 
face. ^ Four persons took out 6,000 pounds, 
yielding 76 per cent, of copper in ten hours. 

Lead and Silver are very abundant in the 
western portion of the State. In some locali- 
ties the yield has been 20 ounces of pure sil- 
ver to the ton. 

Salt is manufactured on the Texas & Pacific 
Railroad, near Mineola; near the crossing of 
the Trinity River by the International Rail- 
road, in Llano County, and various other 
points, from saline springs and wells. Also 
in southwestern Texas large salt lakes are 
found, as well as in El Paso County, from 
which very large quantities of salt are taken, 
the manufacture being by evaporation pro- 
duced by sunheat. The most important of 
these, and supposed to be inexhaustible, are 
the El Paso salt lakes. A large section of 
country in Texas, and of the Mexican State 
of Chihuahua, derive salt for all purposes 
from these lakes. It will be remembered that 
a few years since the possession of these 
salines caused a disturbance between the 
Mexicans and Americans, which was for a 
while dignified by the title of an Internation- 
al dispute. 

The production of salt in these lakes by the 
deposit from evaporation is constant and 
rapid in this dry region, and in quantities 
which must be very remunerative, when the 
railways being extended through that coun- 
try are completed. 

Iron abounds in the mountainous districts 
of the upper Colorado and tributaries m Bur- 
net, San Saba, Llano, Lam|)assas and Mason 
counties, and is less abundant in various lo- 
calities in other western counties. It is also 



TEXAS. HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



abundant in eastern Texas, in Bowie, Cass, 
Marion, Harrison, Rusk, Cherokee and other 
counties In Marion and Cass counties iron 
works have been successfully established, 
and limited experiments made in other east 
ern counties at a time, however, when tr^ns 
portation was so costly that the ventures were 
not successful. The Keilyville iron works, 
in operation some fifteen years, have been 
profitable, and latterly are being enlarged 
and will probably at no distant time prove 
the source of immense Avealth and the rapid 
development of that section of country. At 
Rusk, in Cherokee County, immense deposits 
of iron (hematite and limonite) are found, and 
the State, with the intention of developing 
and utilizing this great source of wealth, has 
established the east Texas penitentiary at that 
point. 

The cost of producing a ton of iron at the 
Kelly works is estimated at $7.06. Gypsum 
is found in every portion of the State. A 
quarter million barrels could be shipped north 
every year if there was sufficient capital to 
develope the industry. 

At the base of the mountains, which cross 
Texas from the southwest to northeast, there 
is a series of springs, beginning in Boll county, 
of magnificent character, extending, at inter- 
vals, to San Antonio, giving rise to the Lam- 
pasas, Salado San Marcos, San Antonio, San 
Pedro, Comal, Gruadaloupe and other rivers, 
which afford an abundance of water power. 
At the head of some of them, as the San Mar- 
cos, the spring gushes from the rock and at 
once forms a river large enough to float a 
steamboat. There is scarcely one of these 
streams which does not furnish power enough 
to turn all the spindles of Lowell — and this 
power can be used every day of the year. 
The time will yet come when Texas will con- 
tain scores of manufacturing towns, nestling 
with all their busy activities, beside the most 
beautiful rivers of the world. The water 
power of the San Antonio river may be given 
as an example. Within a straight line dis- 
tance of four miles the fall is 107.6 feet. The 
river itself within the same distance is more 
than three times that length. The volume of 
water is 16,149 cubic feet per minute — equival- 
ent to 303^ horse power for each foot of fall. 
We are frequently asked why it is that with 
all this power going to waste, and an abun- 
dance of raw material on the ground, we do 
not establish manufactories. Our journalis 
tic friends read us many a lecture, in which 
they tell us that factories will prove our sal- 
vation, and enforce the duty of establishing 
them with much eloquence. Readers of 
David Copperfield will remember Micawber's 
excellent reason for not engaging in the coal 
trade. It requires capital to establish fac- 
tories, and all the capital we have is required 
to till our fields and move our crops. 

One great advantage that would result from 
the establishment of cotton factories in the 
south would be the superior quality of the 
production. It is well known that the staple 
of cotton suffers greatly in the compress. 
The late Hiram Close, of Galveston, an old 



machinist and careful thinker, demonstrated 
that Texas cotton could be spun and sent to 
New Enghind much cheaper than it could be 
sent in the bale. It may be observed that 
Southern mills have no competitors in the 
quality of their products. That which we 
do manufacture is as good as the best. The 
4-4 domestics produced by Southern mills are 
fully equal to Indian Head and \\'auchesetts. 
A mill at Waco, Texas, produces the best 
seamless bags, for the price, in the I nitcd 
States. 

It may not be amiss to give briefly the rea- 
son why Southern cotton goods, which are 
manufactured direct from tlie lint as it comes 
from the gin, are superior to those made from 
the same cotton after it has been compressed. 
The most important factor in determining the 
quality of cotton is the length of the staple 
When cotton is compressed, it is subjected to 
such immense pressure that all the fibres are 
interlaced and formed into a solid body. 
The method of preparing cotton from the 
bale for the carding machine, is to first pass 
it through the opener — by which the fibres 
are to a certain extent separated, and thereby 
many of them broken. It is then passed 
twice through the beater and the lap machine. 
Each machine having two or more beaters, 
which are straight bars of steel, revolving at 
2,000 revolutions per minute around an axle 
to which they are attached, and striking the 
cotton which is pushed up to them over the 
edge of a steel plate, and no timed that the 
staple of cotton gets three blows in every 
one-sixteenth of an inch in the length of the 
fiber from each beater, or twelve blows on 
every one-sixteenth of an inch altogether This 
is done to break up the leaf and beat out the 
dust. Of course it breaks the larger part of 
the fibres. The slightest examination of lint 
cotton as it comes from the gin, and the same 
as it comes from the lap machine, will show 
the injury that has been done. There is a 
machine by which the cotton is delivered di- 
rect on the lap machine roller without being 
touched ; it is therefore at its best estate and 
uninjured. This is the chief reason for the 
superior quality of Southern cotton fabrics. 

I read you an extract from the Baltimore 
Sun of last week : 

" The first manufactory of translucent por- 
celain in the United States has recently been 
established in JSIew Orleans, by Mr. Eugene 
Surgi, who has engaged the services of Mr. 
d'Estampes, formerly director of a porcelain, 
factory at Vierzan, France. The latter had 
already started the business in New Orleans 
in a small way, but was importing his kaolin 
from France, being ignorant that kaolin of the 
requisite quality could be obtained in this 
country. The firm of capitalists who took 
over the business of Mr. d'Estampes, for the 
purpose of conducting it on a large scale, 
caused a search to be made for the proper 
kind of kaolin, and ultimately found it in 
Robertson County, Texas, on the line of the 
Houston & Texas Central Railroad." . 

But time will not permit me to even suggest 
the multitude of resources and industries 



10 



TEXAS. HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



which are awaiting development in that Em- 
pire State, whicli lies beside the blue waters 
of the Mexican Gulf. 

HEALTH. 

I think there is not a State in the Union 
which, as a whole, conipaies in health with 
Texas. Whilst on our bottom lands, subject 
to overflow, we have chills, yet the great body 
of the State is admirably drained ; a very large 
portion of it high rolling prairie, blessed in the 
summer with the gulf breeze, and in the win- 
ter by the norther'which sweeps malaria clear 
away. So far from regarding the norther as a 
curse, I esteem it a blessing. Pulmonary dis- 
eases are scarcel}' known, and Avith proper 
safeguards, I see no reason why yellow^ fever 
should ever prevail throughout the State, al- 
though of course it may occasionally reach 
our coast front; but it is a notable fact that 
during the two years in which yellow fever 
raged east of the Mississippi, we had not one 
case iH Texas. 

Permit me to conclude this already too much 
extended paper with the suggestion that in the 
year 1879, with all the advantages of careful 



culture, cheap labor and improved ni.-ichinery, 
the average cash value of the principal crops 
per acre in New York, $14.15, while in Texas, 
with all the manifold disadvantages of new 
homes, crude culture, and the inability to pur- 
chase machinery, the average cash value of 
the crops was $i4.69. These figures are fnmi 
the last report of the United States Statistician. 
But if we should assume that Texas is no more 
fruitful than New York, the amount of wealth 
which will accrue to the nation from her de- 
velopment amounts to an almo.«rt incredible 
sum. New York produced in the year 1878, 
$356,142,502 of agricultural products; the six 
times 2:reater area of Texas would yield $1 - 
536,855,612. 

Here, Mr. President, lies in a compact mass 
the richest natural resources and blessings 
which kind Heaven has vouchsafed to any 
portion of our great country, and, as a 
patriotic duty, I invoke the science and aid 
of your honored organization in subduing and 
developing them to the needs of man and the 
enrichment of our national wealth 



INTRODUCTION. 



This pamphlet is one of several, published by the South-western Immigration Com- 
pany for gratuitous distribution among those who are considering the wisdom of leaving 
their old homes and establishing themselves in some locality, where their opportunities 
for comfort and competency will be enhanced. It is manifestly proper that the reader 
should be informed of the Company which addresses him and the work it seeks to accom- 
plish. Briefly, then, the South-western Immigration Company is an association composed 
of individuals and railway companies interested in peopling the south western portion of 
the United States, or, to speak more precisely, the States of Texas and Arkansas— the 
southern portion of Missouri, and the western portion of Louisiana. Its general office is 
located at Austin, Texas, with subordinate oflScesatNew York, and other centres of popu- 
lation. Hon. Wm. W. Lang, late Master of the Texas State Grange, is President, and 
B. G. Duval, Esq., of Austin, Secretary. It has for its sole purpose the dissemination of 
information relative to the section of the country indicated. It neither sells land nor re- 
commends purchases. Its object is to settle the country with an industrious, thrifty and 
enterprising population, which will develop its resources, make it wealthy and populous. 
Its publications will be truthful statements of trhe natural and other resources of the 
several localities mentioned. No means will be spared to gather accurate information 
and truthfully recite it. At the New York Office, 243 Broadway, which is in charge of 
J. N. Victor, Esq., there will be maintained au extensive and interesting display of soils, 
crops, timber, fruits, minerals and other productions of the section represented. 

All who feel an interest in the matter of immigration are invited to address any of the 
officers or agents of the Company for books, maps, or such special information as they 
may desire, which will be furnished without charge. 

And if any are in doubt as to the standing, integrity or competency of the Company, 
they are invited to address inquiry to the Governors of either of the States named, or 
other persons, whose official position will entitle their statements to belief. 



SOUTH-WESTERN IMMIGRATION CO, 



THE PLAN AND PURPOSE OF ITS ORGANIZATION. 



The South-western Immigration Company 
is an organization for the purpose of advanc- 
ing immigration into the south-west portion of 
the United States, comprising the States of 
Arl<:ansas and Texas, together with so much 
of Missouri as Ues south of the Missouri River, 
and of Louisiana as is west of the Mississippi, 
This section of country is homogeneous in its 
character, and held together by a common in- 
terest. It forms, so to speak, a distinct sec- 
tion of the country, and the prosperity of one 
portion of it is the prosperity of all. 

The organization was the outgrowth of a 
conviction among certain railroad corporations 
that the cause of immigration (so necessary to 
make these great entei'prises rapidly remuner- 
ative) could only be effectually subserved by 
united action. Previous to this time the rail- 
ways had expended large sums of money in 
seperate efforts to encourage immigration in- 
to the sections in which tliey were specially 
interested. Enterprises of this sort, where 
sf If-interest is manifestly the motive power, 
are looked upon with suspicion by strangers. 
Hence they were not found to be effective. 
The people of Texas had incorporated into 
their constitution a provision that no money 
should be expended for the purpose of bring- 
ing immigrants into the State. This was not 
frotft any indifference to immigration, but be 
cause Texas is an economical debt-paying 
State, and it had been observed that in some 
States much taxation had been caused by* im- 
migration and other bureaus, all of which 
were forbidden, from that prudence which 
guards every avenue to the public treasury 
against extravagant expenditure. So it came 
about that railway enterprise undertook at its 
own expense what in other portions of the 
country has been effected at large cost to the 
people of the States. The following railway 
companies are members of the corporation 
known as the South-western Immigration 
Company: Missouri Pacific, St. Louis, Iron 
Mountain & Southern, International & Great 
Northern, Missouri, Kansas & Texas, Texas 
& Pacific, New Orleans & Pacific, Gulf, Colo- 
rado & Santa Fee, and Dallas & Wichita Kail- 
ways. 

In announcing the formation of the Com- 
pany, the President used the following au- 
thoritive language: 

" The South-western Immigration Company 
is not a land agency. It has no interest in 
lands, and will acquire none. It is separate 
and distinct from the land departments of the 
railroad companies. They will conduct their 
land business in their own way. Tlie means 
they have furnished to this company are to be 
used for the common good. The object of 
this company is 1o people the South-west — to 
fill up vast unoccupied spaces, so that the rich 



stores of wealth that now lie locked in the 
bosom of the earth, may be made subservient 
to the uses of man ; to increase commerce ; to 
double transportation; to establish industries 
that will manufacture raw products into use- 
ful fabrics, and, in short, to put this section 
on the advance ground of civilization. To 
this end we labor. The railroads have gener- 
ously placed a large sum of money at the com- 
pany's disposal, to be expended in the accom- 
plishment of this object. Their conduct in 
this deserves the good feeling of a grateful 
public, and solicits its support in a work so 
praiseworthy. The inauguration of this com- 
pany, being a voluntary offering for the pub- 
lic good, I feel at liberty to call upon the peo- 
ple of the country for gratuitous assistance, 
and, therefore, urge them, in their several 
counties, to form immigration or agricultural 
societies to aid in the collection of such statis- 
tical information regarding crops, stock-rais- 
ing, commerce, transportation, etc., together 
with such descriptive matter as will set forth 
the advantages of their respective counties as 
fit homes for immigrants. In this w^e want 
nothing but truthful statements, without ex- 
aggeration or fanciful painting. Overdrawn 
descriptions, reaching far beyond reality, can 
do no good ; but, on the contrary, will disap- 
point the new settler who has been led hither 
by them, and in the end cause dissatisfaction, 
discontent, and hinder immigration to that 
section. 

' ' When such societies are formed and prop- 
erly organized, they are requested to furnish 
this office with name and postoffice address. 
Upon reporting to this office, the company 
will furnish blanks and formulated questions, 
to enable them to collect such information as 
may be of value in a systematic way. 

" I further submit to the public the pro- 
priety of erecting a suitable building at the 
important railroad connections, where an im- 
migrant's liome may be kept, furnishing im- 
migrants with shelter and reasonable comfort 
at a low rate, until a location or employment 
may be obtained. " 

The people recognise the fact that this work 
is to yield no immediate and direct return of 
money, but that in the development of the 
country and in its settlement the indirect re- 
turns will be an ample compensation for all 
they bestow. It is the aim of the company 
to furnish reliable information of the advan- 
tages of the country. It will liave no trades 
to make with immigrants,and makes no charges 
against them for whatever services it will ren- 
der them. All inquiries respecting country, 
lands, laws, etc., will be promptly answered 
from the most reliable sources of information 
at its command. Correspondence is respect- 
fully solicited. 



INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT OF THE GENERAL 

ADVANTAGES OF THE STATE AS A 

FIELD FOR IMMIGRANTS. 



The State of Texas offers inducements to 
immigrants which cannot be surpassed in 
many respects, and are rarely equalled by any 
other country on this continent. These com- 
prise excellence of climate, soil and water, 
agricultural, grazing and commercial advan- 
tages, and educational facilities; and in addi- 
tion to all these, cheap lands. The settler who 
comes into this State now, has not necessarily 
to undergo the hardships of pioneer life, as 
was formerly the case. He can, if his inclina- 
tions point that way, still find large areas of 
uncultivated pasture lands in the extreme 
west and north-west, where his flocks and 
herds may roam at will, but at least one-third 
of the territory of the State is about as well 
populated as many of the States east of the 
Mississippi River. Mills, gins, stores, schools 
and churches are met with almost everywhere, 
and opportunities for social intercourse are at 
the command of even those m the most 
sparsely settled neighborhoods. But a glance 
at the accompanying map will show what an 
enormous extent of fertile and productive land 
is still open to settlement. Within a few 
years past, the country west of longitude 98°, 
was the home alone of the Indian and an oc- 
casional hardy frontiersman, who stubbornly 
disputed his sway. Now the area of popula- 
tion has pushed westward to the 100th degree 
of longitude, and even beyond that. But 
there yet remains the "Panhandle" section, 
having an area of about 31,000 square miles, 
which is much more than an average-sized 
State of the Union, almost entirely unoccupied, 
and M^hich has been shown by recent surveys, 
to be in general a very rich and fertile section, 
well adapted to agricultural purposes. South 
of the "Panhandle" and west of the 100th de- 
gree of longitude, stretches a vast extent of 
country, suitable for sheep, horses and cattle, 
and, along the streams, for agricultural pur- 
poses. The mineral wealth of a great part of 
this sparsely settled country, from the limited 
examinations so far made, is believed to be 
very great, and to promise, in the near future, 
a fine field for the pioneer prospector. 

The facilities for travel, and the transporta- 
tion for produce and supplies over the greater 
part of the State, are now ample. There are 
at present in operation over 3,000 miles of 
railway, five hundred and sixty-five miles of 
which were completed during the year ending 
September 1st, 1880. And the extension of 
these roads in every direction, is being rapidly 
and energetically pushed. No country on the 
continent seems to present the same attractions 
for railroad capital that Texas does, judging 
from the niimber of new enterprises of this 
sort that are being inaugurated, and the rapid 
extension of the lines already in process of 
construction. 

AH along these lines of road, towns are 
springing up, and population increasing sufli- 
cient for the establishment of schools and so- 
cieties ; and stores, where goods are sold at no 



greater advance of prices than the cost of ad- 
ditional freight, are found at the railway 
stations, and here also the farmer finds a 
ready market for his produce. 

The farmer is invit(id to a country of unsur- 
passed fertility and health, where upon the 
same land he can produce the great staples, 
cotton, wheat, oats, rye, corn, tobacco and 
sugar; the grazier, to the broad prairies or 
rolling uplands, where cattle, sheep and liorses, 
feed the year round on the native grasses ; the 
artisan and mechanic, to thriving, growing 
towns, where his skilled labor is in demand at 
remunerative prices ; the capitalist, to the in- 
a'lguration of the many industrial and manu- 
facturing enterprises demanded by a vigorous 
and growing population. In short, the immi- 
grant who seeks "natural advantages," can 
scarcely go amiss for them, and must be hard 
indeed to please, if in our great diversity of 
soil, climate and production he can find no 
spot to suit him for the establishment of a 
home. 

The design of this chapter, how^ever, is 
merely to introduce the subject, leaving the 
several attractions of the State to be especially 
treated under appropriate headings; but it is 
not out of place to add here that the utmost 
care has been observed throughout, in the 
preparation of these pages, to avoid exaggera- 
tion. It must be borne in mind that this pam- 
phlet is not the production of an individual or 
company interested in the sale of lands, but a 
publication made solely for the purpose of at- 
tracting immigration by a truthful aud un- 
biased statement of facts. But while its object 
is to set forth the inducements which Texas 
offers to immigrants, and invite the latter to 
settle within her borders, those having charge 
of its publication, fully appreciate that, if 
mutual benefits are to flow from immigration, 
new settlers must not be attracted by represen- 
tations which their future experience will not 
verify. Should they be deceived they may 
become dissatisfied, and results may follow 
alike injurious to themselves and to the State. 
For this reason it has been deemed of utmost 
moment that no assertion shall find a place in 
in these pages unless it is entirely true. 

And just here one word to our own people. 
The people of Texas cannot be too careful as 
to the manner in which they receive new com- 
ers, A civil word, a little politeness, or an act 
of kindness, costing nothing, may be the 
means of favorably impressing a stranger, wlio 
in turn, may be the cause of turning Imndreds 
of immigrants in this direction. On the other 
hand, a short, uncivil answer and gruff man- 
ners will, in a measure, confirm the unfavor- 
able reports given him b; the enemies of 
Texas, and he returns or gv^es, disgusted, to 
other portions of the country and uses his in- 
fluence against us. It w^ould require an almost 
superhuman effort of philosophy for persons 
coming to a strange land where things are 
found so entirely different from their accus- 



14 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



tomed surroundings, not to fee] a natural 
"homesickness," and when to this is added a 
cold and surly reception, it is not strange that 
sometimes disgust supervenes; and he who 
might have been a good citizen and a good 
neighbor becomes a bitter enemy. We who 
are "native and to the manner born" know 
that there is as much hospitality and kindly 
feeling among the people of Texas as can pos- 
sibly exist anywhere, and these suggestions 
are not made with the idea that immigrants 
coming into the State are likely to receive 
" a cotd shoulder," but our people should see 
to it that such persons have extended to them 
not only the common courtesy due to strangers, 
but that hearty welcome and active sympathy 
and assistance that no man appreciates so 
much as he who finds himself "a stranger in 
a strange land." 



LOCATION AND AREA OF TEXAS. 

Texas is situated between Latitude 25*^ 50' 
and 80^ 30' North, and Longitude 93^ 30' and 
106*^ 40' West ; greatest length from the mouth 
of the Rio Grande River to the northwest cor- 
ner, about 825 miles; greatest breadth, along 
the 32d parallel, about 840 miles. Area 274,- 
356 square miles. It is bounded north by New 
Mexico (west of the 103d meridian), the In- 
dian Territory and Arkansas, the Red River 
being the dividing line east of the 100th meri- 
dian ; east by the Indian Territory (north of 
lat. 34^ 30'), Arkansas and Louisiana, from the 
last of which it is mostly separated by the Sa- 
bine River and Lake ; southeast by the Gulf of 
Mexico; southwest by Mexico, from which it 
is separated by the Rio Grande; and west by 
New Mexico. The map which is attached 
shows its form. As stated, its boundaries en- 
close an area of 274,356 square miles, or 175,- 
587,840 acres. An idea of its extent may best 
be formed, perhaps, by comparing it with 
other countries; for instance, it has 34,000 
square miles of area more than the Austrian 
empire, 62,000 more than the German empire, 
about "70,000 more than France, is nearly as 
large as Sweden and Norway together, and 
twice the size of Great Britain and Ireland, 
Coming to this side of the Atlantic the com- 
parison is no less startling. The area of all 
the Eastern and Middle States, including 
Maryland and Delaware, is 100,000 square 
miles less than Texas. It is six times as large 
as New York, seven times as large as Ohio, 
four times as large as all New England. The 
area of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and 
Michigan, taken togetiier, falls short of that 
of Texas by some 40,000 square miles, or an- 
other State as large as Ohio. If you cross the 
Mississippi you must consolidate Kansas, Ne- 
braska, Iowa and Minnesota to equal the area 
of Texas. 

This vast territory is cut up into 226 coun- 
ties, some of which are in themselves quite 
equal in size to many of the States. The 
counties of Tom Green, Presidio and Pecos 
are each larger than tlie State of Maryland, 
nearly double the size of Massachusetts, and 
nearly three times as large as Connecticut. 



The territory of Texas is, in truth, of mag- 
nificent extent, and the term "Empire State 
of the Southwest," sometimes used in refer- 
ence to it, \^ not inaptly applied. 

GENERAL FEATURES OF THE STATE. 

Texas is a vast inclined plane, with a gradual 
descent from the northern and northwestern 
boundary to the Gulf of Mexico. The c(;a.st- 
counties are nearly level for sixty to eighty 
miles inland; the s^urface then becomes undu- 
lating, with alternate gradual elevations and 
depressions, and this feature increases as we 
proceed toward the northwest, until it becomes 
hilly and finally mountainous in some of the 
far western counties. The highest ranges, 
however, do not attain a greater altitude than 
5,000 feet. In the coast counties the soil and 
climate are especially adapted to the culture 
of sea-island cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar and 
many semi-tropical fruits and vegetables. 
Nearly all this level coast country, from the 
Sabine River on the east to the Rio Grande on 
the west, is prairie, only broken here and there 
by "motts" (isolated islands) of timber, or the 
bottoms of the streams. Over these vast 
prairies countless thousands of cattle roam and 
keep fat the year round on the natural pas- 
turage. 

The eastern portion of the State, or that east 
of the 96^^ of longitude and north of the 30th 
parallel of latitude, comprising about forty 
counties, is heavily timbered, and from this 
section are drawn nearly all the immense sup- 
plies of pine lumber required in the prairie 
portions of the State. The natural resources 
of this section are varied. In it are vast de- 
posits of iron ore of excellent quality. Large 
crops of cotton, corn and other grain are 
grown in its valleys, and its uplands are noted 
for the production of fruits and vegetables. 
It is generally well watered by pure streams 
and fine springs, and everywhere wells of the 
best drinking water are found at moderate 
depths. 

Central and Northern Texas, though gener- 
ally a rich rolling prairie country, are by no 
means devoid of sufticient timber for ordinary 
purposes, its numerous streams being fringed 
with a large growth of forest trees. It is also 
traversed by the upper and lower "cross tim- 
bers," an extensive belt of oak, elm, and of 
other timber, beginning on Red River, in 
Crook and Montague counties, and running 
in a southwestern direction diagonally across, 
the State, nearly to the Rio Grande. Western 
and Southwestern Texas are the great pastoral 
regions of the State. The surface is generally 
a high rolling tal)le-land, watered by numerous 
creeks and small streams, but with little tim- 
ber, except along the streams and on some of 
the hills and mountain regions of the western 
part, where forests of cedars, mountain juni- 
per, oak, etc., exist. 

The luxuriant growth of rich native grasses 
found in this section renders it pre-eminently 
a stock-raising country, and as such it is un- 
excelled by any other portion of the continent. 
The precious metals and other mineral dei)os 
its are known to exist in this section of the 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



15 



State, and it is believed their development 
will be rapid and successful as the country be- 
comes more accessible, when the railroads 
now in process of construction shall have been 
completed. 

BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH 
Texas Government underwent many rapid 
changes before its territory became a member 
of this stable country. Up to the year 1831, 
Texas was a part of Mexico under the domin- 
ion of Spanish Viceroys. In that y^ar Mex- 
ico renounced her allegiance to Spain and 
established a Regency. After one year's trial 
the Regency was changed to an Imperial Gov- 
ernment. Then the Emporer was deposed, 
and in 1823 a Republican form of government 
was instituted. This only lasted one year, 
when it was changed for a Federal system 
modeled after that'of the United States. This 
lasted ten years, and in 1838 Santa Anna es- 
tablished a military despotism. After three 
years of turbulence and bloodshed in which 
the Texans fought under the Federal Flag 
of Mexico, she declared her independence, 
iind in 1836 Texas became an independent 
Republic — and in 1845 was voluntarily annex- 
ed to the United States. Her population at 
that time could not have exceeded 150,000. 
By the treaty of annexation Texas retained all 
her public domain. She sold that which now 
•constitutes a part of New Mexico to the United 
- States for ten millions of dollars. With this 
she paid her debt of five millions — constructed 
her Capitol — Deaf and Dumb, Blind and Luna- 
tic Asylums — and endowed her public schools 
Mith the remainder. ^, 

HOW LAND TITLES ORIGINATE. 

As already stated, Texas reserved by the 
treaty of annexation all her public domain, 
amounting to 268,684 square miles, or 171,967, 
i'M) acres. Thus it was that while she was 
I he youngest of States she was the most 
wealthy. 

From the earliest days of the Republic it 
\ has ever been the policy of Texas to use her 
public lands for the encouragement of immi- 
) gration, the endowment of her school fund, 
and the building of internal improvements 
within the Stale. At one time she gave to 
each immigrant, the head of a family, as much 
as a league, and labor of laud (4,605 acres); a 
single man, a third of a league; these were 
called head-rights. She also gave bounty 
warrants to men who joined her army, and to 
men who would mark out wagon-roads, or 
build mills, bridges, etc. After annexation 
she passed a law, giving as a subsidy sixteen 
sections for every mile of railroad built upon 
certain lines, and in accordance with their 
charters. Also for removing obstructions and 
thus making navigable certain rivers. She 
has also given large grants to the several coun- 
ties, and to the deaf and dumb, the insane and 
the blind asylums, as also to the Colleges and 
the Universities. All grants of land are made 
by direct act of the legislature, and when 
coupled with conditions, as in the case of rail- 
roads, and the conditions complied with fully. 



the Commissioner of the General Larwi Office, 
located at the capitol of the State, issues a Isgad 
warrant which says upon its face (in substanoe) 

" that is by virtue of this warrant entitled 

to 840 acres of land, to be taken from any of 
the unappropriated laud of the State of Texas, 
the same to be surveyed according to law," 
and this land warrant, or land certificate, as it 
is usually called, is the foundation of all the 
titles in the State. 

Each county has a local land office, with a 
surveyor, who is a bonded officer of the State. 
He keeps an accurate map of every survey 
ever made in his county, and a book in which 
every set of field notes (metes and bounds) are 
duly recorded. A party holding a laud war- 
rant and wishing to locate the same, w^ould 
apply to one of these county surveyors, and 
by examining his map can soon tell how 
much, if any, vacant land still remains in that 
county; if there was none, or if it did not suit, 
he would pass from county to county, until a 
satisfactory tract could be had, and when had, 
he would turn over his warrant to the sur- 
veyor, who would file it in his book, and sur- 
vey off the quantity it called for. After the 
survey is made, and the field notes recorded, 
they are sent together with the warrant, to the 
General Land Office, and a patent is issued, 
signed by the Commissioner, and by the Gov- 
ernor of the State, and this patent forms the 
complete- title. 

Of late years the Legislature in grantiag 
this land subsidy to railroads and for the im- 
provement of rivers, made it obi igatoiy upon 
them or their assigns to take their lands in 
alternate sections, surveying one for them- 
selves and one for the State, and plotting both 
upon the county map. The alternate section, 
thus surveyed for the State immediately be- 
comes ''School Land" and is for sale at a mini- 
mum price of one dollar pei- acre; but where a 
section contains water or fronts on the same, 
the minimum price is two dollars per acre. 

No sale can be made of less than 160 acres, 
unless it be a fractional section of less than 
that amount. No one person, firm or corpora- 
tion can purchase more than one sec;tion of 
arable land or three sections of pasture land 
within five miles of the geographical center of 
a county or upon a water front; beyond such 
limits a sale may be made to one purclii'S(;r of 
not more than seven sections, if the s; iie is 
classed as grazing land. When applic; tion i.s 
made for less than one section, no fra» 'ion of 
less than 160 acres in a square form shall be 
left, and no fractional section of less than 320 
acres shall be divided. 

Where purchasers desire it they need only 
pay down one twentieth (1-20) part, and the 
balance in annual payments, for twenty years, 
with eight per cent, interest, but they have the 
privilege of paying all cash down if they prefer. 

To purchase from the school land he applies 
to the county surveyor, who, upon his appli- 
cation, will survey him off 160 acres or the 
amount applied for, receive the first payment, 
and take his note for the balance; and, as .soon 
as all the payments and interest have been 
duly paid, a patent will be issued by the State. 



16 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



"Homesteads may be acquired in any por- 
tion of the State where vacant land can be 
found. Each head of a family is entitled to 
160 acres, and each single person eighteen 
years of age to eight}- acres, by settling upon, 
occupying and improving the same for three 
consecutive years. The applicant must, within 
thirty days after settling upon the land, tile 
with the county surveyor a written designation 
of the land he desires to secure, and must have 
it surveyed within twelve months from date of 
such application, and the tield notes and ap- 
plication forwarded to the General Land 
Office. When the three years have expired 
from date of original settlement, proof that the 
applicant and his assignee, if he has sold, have 
resided upon and improved the same as re- 
quired by law, must be tiled in the General 
Land Otfice. This must be sworn to by the 
settler and two disinterested witnesses before 
some officer authorized to administer oaths. 
Patent will then issue to the original settler or 
his assignee if proper transfers are filed." 

LAWS. 

The laws of the State are similar to those of 
the most advanced States of the Union. They 
give ample and full protection to life and pro- 
perty, and are rigidly enfoi'ced. The largest 
liberty of speech and freedom of thought is 
encouraged and guaranteed ; no proscriptions 
in religion or politics are tolerated. Every 
right and privilege is closely guarded in the 
laws. All forms of religious worship are prac- 
ticed, and every shade of politics is entertained 
among the people. The Democratic party is 
the dominant political sentiment of the State. 
The next largest political division is the Re- 
publican parly. In many localities of the 
State it is in the majority, and the offices are 
filled by Republicans. The Legislature is 
composed of Democrats, Republicans, Green- 
backers (or Nationals) and Independents. The 
privilege of the ballot is as free to the one as 
to the other citizen, and all are protected by 
law in its free and untrammeled exercise. 

Article XII. and Section 15 of the State 
Constitution reads as follows: 

'• The Legislature shall have power, and it 
shall be their duty, to protect by law, from 
forced sale, a certain portion of the property 
of all heads of families. The homestead of a 
family, not to exceed two hundred acres of 
land (not included in a city, town or village), 
or any city, town or village lot, or lots, not to 
exceed five thousand dollars in value, at the 
time of their designation as a homestead, and 
without reference to the value of any improve- 
ments thereon, shall not be subject to forced 
sale for debts, except they be for the purchase 
thereof, for the taxes thereon, or for labor and 
materials expended thereon; nor shall the own- 
er, if a married man, be at liberty to alienate 
the name, unleHH by the consent of the wife, and 
m such manner as may be prescribed by law." 

It frequently happens that necessity com- 
pels one to incur debt, and no matter how 
well such result may be guarded against in- 
ability to pay when the debt matures will 
sometimes be the condiiiou of the mo^t pru- 



dent and honest. Sickness, accident to per- 
son or property, or other circumstances wholly 
beyond the control of the individual may bring 
this about. Under such circumstances it is 
gratifying to know that the creditor cannot 
take from his unfortunate debtor the home, 
nor its furniture and conveniences, nor the 
food, stock, implements, tools, etc., by means 
of which the debtor may recover from the 
effect of his losses. But far greater than this 
is the consolation of knowing that even should 
death overtake one, while laboring under such 
embarrassment, the bereaved widow and chil- 
dren will still be secure in the possession of 
their home and its comforts and the means to 
gain a livelihood. 

PROVISIONS IN THE CONSTITUTION 
OF THE STATE OF TEXAS. 

1. The legal rate of interest is fixed at eight 
per cent. , but may be made twelve per cent, 
by special contract. 

2. All property of the wife, owned or claim- 
ed by her before marriage, as well as that ac- 
quired afterward by gift, devise, or descent, 
shall be her separate property. 

3. The wife's property is exempt from the 
husband's debts, and all their earnings during 
marriage are partnership effects. 

4. Provision is made that the qualified vo- 
ters of any county, justice's precinct, town or 
city, by a majority vote, may determine 
whether the sale of intoxicating liquor shall 
be prohibited within the prescribed limits. 

5. Certain portions of personal property of 
all persons are protected from forced sale. 

TAXES AND FINANCES. 
The taxable values of the State are $318,- 
970,736, against which there is levied an an- 
nual assessment of forty cents on the one hun- 
dred dollars for State, and twenty cents for 
county revenue. The bonded debt of the 
State is $5,029,920, about three million of 
which is held by the State for account of 
special funds. There is also a surplus bal- 
ance in the treasury of near $600,000. The 
financial condition of the State and counties- 
is upon a good basis, and taxation is compara- 
tively light. Not more than ooe-fourth of the 
general revenue is set apart by the Constitu- 
tion for the purpose of sustaining a system of 
public education. But few of the counties 
have a bonded debt, and but few have subsi- 
dized railroads. Most of the counties are free 
of debt, and reducing the burden of taxation 
from year to year, as the taxable values in- 
crease. The people are industrious and pro- 
gressive. Every industrious, frugal and pru 
dent man who has settled within the State, 
and who has followed closely his occupation, 
and refrained from speculation, has improved 
his condition, and thousands have grown rich, 
or have become independent livers. So abun- 
dant are the elements of wealth that all pru- 
dent and industrious people succeed. 

^ EDUCATION. 

Great as are the manifold attractions offer 
ed by the climate, the soil, and other physical 
advantages of Texas, none of them equal the^ 






TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



17 



princely provision which the fathers of the 
Republic made for the education of the mil- 
lions of youth who will, in the near future, 
be numbered among her population. The 
far sighted statesmanship of those who laid 
the foundation of the "Lone Star" Republic, 
provided for the education of generations yet 
unborn a more generous revenue than is en- 
joyed by the schools of any State in the Am- 
erican Union. Nay, more than this; as we 
read the page on which tkese princely reven- 
ues are dedicated to education, we shall see 
that neither Oxford nor Cambridge have such 
royal endowments as the sages of Texas gave 
to the University of Texas. 

There is a permanent School Fund of 
$3,500,000. That of Massachusetts is only 
two-thirds as large. 

These lands have been set apart for educa- 
tional purposes : 

For a' university 1,221,400 acres. 

County school domain 2,833,920 

General school domain 50,000 000 " 



Total 54,055,320 

So much for the permanent support of the 
schools. Let us see what provision is made 
for their present maintenance, besides the in- 
terest on the $3,500,000 permanent fund. 
This is yielding an annual income of more 
than $200,000, and is increasing from land 
sales $100,000 a year. 

The constitution sets apart not more than 
one-fourth the general revenue of the State, 
and $1 poll tax for the support of common 
schools. In the year 1880 this amounted to 
$919,880. Besides this amount, there is the 
interest on the county school fund, $550,020, 
being the amount realized and invested by 
those counties which have sold their lands in 
whole or in part. In some cities an addition- 
al local tax is levied for the support of schools. 

So much for the provisions for schools. 
What is being done with the money that is 
available now ? 

Of course, in sparsely settled communities 
the inauguration of schools is difficult. And 
it is almost impossible to apply any strict 
system. There must be more or less flexibili- 
ty. Free schools are maintained in 159 coun- 
ties. Of these, reports have been received 
from only 132 counties; yet in these counties 
there were 4,523 schools. These were attend- 
ed by 133,667 white children, and by 45,465 
colored children. In them were employed 
3,258 white teachers, and 991 colored teach- 
ers, being a total of 4,249 teachers. 

The State has also established two normal 
schools, one of which is for the education of 
colored teachers. At these schools the stu- 
dents are both educated and boarded without" 
charge. From these a supply of trained 
teachers is constantly going to all portions of 
the State. An agricultural college has been 
located near Bryan. The State appropriating 
$200,000 and erecting elegant buildings, in 
every manner adapted to the uses of a lirst- 
class college. A full corps of professors has 
been employed and all the necessary parapher- 
nalia purchased. Besides alljthis, a bill is now 
before the Legislature, and has been favorably 



reported by the committee, to endow the col- 
lege with one million acres of laud. Thus 
generously does Texas provide for the edu- 
cation of all classes of her youth ; where is 
there another State that has done so liberally? 
The people of Texas are eminently a re- 
ligious people. There is no State in the 
Union where church-going facilities are more 
highly prized, or where a larger proportion 
of the citizens are members of church organi- 
zations. About a half million people are the 
recognized members of a religious denomi 
natien : 

Baptists 125,000 

Methodist Episcopal 100,000 

Methodist Protestant 2,000 

Prcsby erians 9 000 

Cumberland Presbyterians 4,000 

Disciples of Christ 7,000 

Episcopalians 4,000 

Roman Catholics 150,000 

501,000 

Surely a community in which one third of 
the population professes direct church affilia- 
tions cannot be very lawless. 

I have attempted to concisely delineate the 
capabilities and possibilities of this great 
State. The enormous productive capacities 
of the country and the energies of the people, 
aided by the railway system, will, in the near 
future, make Texas the richest and grandest 
State of the American Union. 

»I8 TEXAS A LAND OF LAWLESSNESS? 

Texas is often represented as a rough bor- 
der country, without organized society and 
without the characteristics that distinguish an 
elevated, refined and. progressive people. Ir- 
responsible immigration agents, whose inter- 
est often depends upon the number of people 
they send over certain lines of railroad, de- 
light to picture her as the home of the des- 
parado and the abiding place of lawlessness 
asd crime. No better evidence of their men- 
dacity need be cited than the extraordinary 
progress Texas has made within the last 
decade. The turbulent elements of society 
can find no congeniality amid a live, active, 
working and progressive people. Idleness is 
said to be the fruitful mother of wickedness 
and crime. The industrious and progressive 
citizen finds no time for the commission of 
crime, but delights in the pleasures and vic- 
tories found along the pathway of progress. 
While working upward he is contented and 
pleased with the world and himself. The 
avenues of crime lead from the haunts of in- 
dolence as certainly as are the ways of pro- 
gress traceable to honest, unceasing toil. The 
rapid march of Texas, in those great industries 
which bring wealth, contentment and honor 
to a people, briefly stated, should do more 
than anything else to convince the thinking 
mind that she has been most wickedly 
maligned. 

Her population has increased from 818,579 
in 1870, to 1,654,480 in 1880, an increase of 
more than one hundred per cent. The prin- 
cipal source of this increase is from immigra- 
tion, and the question might be pertinerflly 
a^ked here if there is anvthins: in the atmos- 



18 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



phere and climate of Texas to make these 
people more lawless and disorderly than in 
their former homes. They have come from 
every clime and from under every form of gov- 
ernment. Accustomed to the stern rule of mon- 
archy or the gentle power of republicanism, 
they bring with them their ancient love for 
well regulated and orderly society which dis- 
tinguished the countries from which they 
come. They have found here a government 
based upon the consent of the people whose 
laws are the formulated expression of public 
sentiment. An examination of the Statute 
Book will vShow that our laws are as rigid in 
the punishment of crime as those of any other 
land, and the records of the courts exhibit an 
almost unfeeling enforcement of the stern re- 
quirements. What, then, is there to make 
them more lawless than other people in other 
countries, or the same people in other coun- 
tries? The records of histor^^ teach that a 
people engaged in development have but little 
time or opportunity for indulging either in 
the glitter of ostentation or the despicable 
pursuits of criminal pleasures. It is im- 
possible that a people who are progressive in 
wealth, education, and the arts and sciences 
can be lawless and disorderly, nor can de- 
pravity or corruption be long tolerated among 
them. No State in the Union will show 
more rapid strides in material development 
and in all the improvements of civilization 
than Texas. Crushed in her hopes by the 
total abolition of her labor system, she cast 
off all regrets and disappointments, and with 
manly courage commenced anew the race of 
life; and now mark her onward course. 

In 1870 she occupied a low position in the 
grade of the States according to their produc 
tions. Her farms were almost fenceless, and 
her f ami-houses were but the rude structures 
of a pioneer people. Her agriculturists prac- 
tised the rude methods, with the ruder appli- 
ances of the frontiersman. The log hut has 
now given way to the cosy farm cottage, or 
the more pretentious country gentleman's 
seat, "^rhe farms are well fenced, and primi- 
tive modes of agriculture have developed into 
the improved machinery and skilled systems 
of cultivation practised by the educated hus- 
bandman. In 1870 the production of cotton 
was 3r)0,H28 bales, which product was low 
down on the list of the cotton-producing 
States. In 1880 she stands at the head of the 
list, producing fully one fifth of the entire 
American crop. In 1870 her crop of wool 
amounted to only 1,251,328 lbs. In 1880 she 
has grown to the rank of Ihe second wool- 
producing State of the Union. In beef pro- 
duction she stands unrivalled. Though cotton 
raising is a specialty in T(!xas, yet she is press- 
ing close upon the heels of the great grain- 
growing States of the West in three of their 
mo>t important cereal crop.s, corn, wheat and 
oat.**. The cotton crop has increased 800 per 
c( nt. and it may be safely estimated that the 
pioduction of corn, wool, wheat, oats and 
si%ar has maintained the same relative in- 
crea8<;. This rapid growth in her great agri 



gration, but it is in part the result of the thrift 
and enterprise of her people upon the bosom 
of the most fructifying soil beneath the sun. 
Nor is it due to the vast extent of area. No 
other State of the same population can equal 
her in increase for the same number of years, 
and no other State of equal population can 
rival her in the production of thoae great 
staples of the soil which bring wealth to a 
people. Truly in agriculture she is growing 
great and powerful, but her progress is not 
confined to this department alone. Her com- 
merce is spreading out and attracting the ob- 
servation of other countries. In wool, hides, 
beef, and cotton her exports exceed those of 
any other State. Galveston is the third cotton 
port of the Union, and if the channel to her 
bays were deepened, so as to admit vessels of 
the heaviest tonnage, she would soon take 
rank with the first exporting cities of the 
United States. A tithe of the vast sums an- 
nually appropriated by Congress for works of 
trifling local importance, would give Texas a 
harbor such as her importance demands; but 
for this neglect her rich products are carried 
over long and expensive railway lines to find 
their way to the markets of the world through 
the ports of other States. 
. In 1870, the number of completed miles of 
railroad in the State was 711. In 1880 it was 
upwards of 3,000, and we can with certainty 
state that there will be built and equipped 
more miles of railway in her limits in 1881 
than in any other State of the American 
Union. The sagacity of capital, ever on the 
alert to turn another penny, is pushing these 
railways out into the regions of the west, 
where the grass grows unruffled by the foot 
of civilized man. It knows that these rich 
soils and genial climate will, in the immedi- 
ate future, invite the labors of the frugal 
farmer, and from their productiveness will 
come the tonnage it covets. Is it not an un- 
w^arranted assumption to suppose that this 
vast capital would seek investment in a coun- 
try where law is disregarded and human 
rights are ignored? Capital is proverbially 
cautious, and prefers safety to large profits. 
Yet we are told that the people of Texas are 
lawless, and that crime holds "high carnival" 
in her borders. 

The number of children attending public 
schools in 1870 was 61,010. In the year 1880, 
despite the reduction of the scholastic age 
from six to eighteen, to eight to fourteen, the 
number of children in attendance upon the 
public schools was 144,968. This increase 
points with wonderful elfect to constant im- 
provement in the system, and to the deter- 
mination of the people to foster and perfect 
a system of public education. 

The increase of church membership has 
kept even pace, if it has rot exceeded that of 
the other growths of the State. 

Can it be thit a people who are making 
such rapid strides in all the arts of civiliza- 
tion are disorderly and brutal, and that per 
son and property rights are unsafe ? 

We would not be understood as asserting 



cultural productions is not due alone to immi- 1 that there is no crime, no diabolism in Tex 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



19 



It exists in every country and under every 
form of government. If there were no crime 
there would be no necessity of government. 
It does exist in Texas, and to a much greater 
extent than we like to see, but that it is more 
prevalent here than elsewhere, or that it is 
tolerated here to a greater degree, we most 
emphatically deny, and point with pride to 
the speedy march of our people in all that 
constitutes greatness and good society, as an 
unerring and irrefragable proof of the un- 
founded and often repeated charge th^t Texas 
is a land of lawlessness and crime. A thrifty, 
industrious and developing people are most 
apt to frown severely at all disturbances of 
peace and the order of societ}^ The safety 
of the earnings of their toil depends upon a 
proper recognition of human rights and the 
laws of the government. A people making- 
such progress as Texas shows, must be patient, 
laborious' and law-abiding — politicians and 
interested immigration agents to the contrary 
notwithstanding. 

The following is an extract from the report 
of the attorney-general of the State, made 
December 31, 1880: 

" The exhibit hereto attached among other 
things will show that between the 30th day of 
November, 1879, and the first day of Decem- 
ber, 1880, there were 3,525 indictments, charg- 
ing felonies, presented in the district courts 
of the State, and that of the cases tried during 
that time, tliere were 906 convictions in felony 
cases. These indictments and convictions 
were as follows- 

No. Inrtictm'ts No. Convict'ns 
Presented. had. 

For embezzlement 78 8 

For murder 259 88 

Forrape 44 9 

Forperjiiry 74 5 

For forgery 131 36 

For burglary 204 94 

For arson 23 5 

Forrobbery. 99 18 

For theft 1,758 483 

For other felonies 855 160 

Total 3,525 906 

Dui-ing this same period there were filed in 
the district courts indictments and informa 
tioiis charging offenses below the grade of 
felony to the number of 4,945, while the con 
victions for misdemeanors in these courts 
amounted to 309. Tiiis small number of con- 
victions is owing to the fact that most of the 
indictments for misdemeanors are sent to the 
county courts for trial. 

It is evident from these reports that crime 
is on the decrease in the State. Take, for 
instance, the following comparative state- 
ment, showing the last four years, and bear 
in mind that the reports for 1880 include 
nearly all the counties, while those for the 
preceding years do not include a large number 
of them, as also the fact of the increase of our 
population during the time. There were pre- 
sented during these years indictment for 
-offenses, as follows : — I 



1877. 1878. 1879. 1880. 

For murder .398 549 344 259 

For theft _ 2,260 2,371 2,rj81 1,7-8 

For arson 26 24 19 23 

For perjury 82 90 ',d 74 

Forrape T,:i 53 34 44 

Fo robl)ery 51 49 47 99 

For forgiry 85 256 155 131 

For burglary 175 154 183 -.04 



Total 3,130 3,548 2,942 2,592 

During the same four years the reports 
show the convictions for these offenses to 
have been as follows: — 

1877. 1878. 1879. 1880. 

For murder 71 122 115 88 

For theft 471 558 651 483 

For arson 5 7 5 5 

For perjury. 3 1 10 5 

For rape 11 9 16 9 

For roDbery... 13 24 9 18 

For forgery 9 17 19 36 

For burglary 58 (51 &2 94 

Tctal 641 799 907 738 

This array of statistical facts is an un- 
answerable refutation of these groundles.s 
charges. Those seeking new homes to belter 
their condition will find here a hearty wel- 
come, where their property and persons will 
b(! as sacredly guarded as in any government 
of the world, and their energy and industry 
as liberally rewarded. No country offers a 
broader field for human labor, and no people 
appreciate more highly the benefits of good 
society than the people of Texas. Honesty 
and industry will be encouraged, and crime 
will receive the condemnation of an indignant 
people. 

The following comments on this subject 
clipped from one of the great New York aail- 
ies of February 2, 1881, shows how our State, 
so much abused in this respect, is coming tcr 
be regarded by fair-minded men : 

"Stalwart journals keep on repeating in 
1881 the comments upon the lawless condition 
of Texas which were in order in 1851. As a 
matter of fact the annual report of the at- 
torney-general of that State rendered at the 
close of last year makes an exhibit on this 
subject which Massachusetts might be glad 
to emulate. In 1878 there were 549 indict- 
ments for homicide preferred in Texas. In 
1879 there were 344. and in 1880 259— being 
a decline of about 300 in two years, while the 
population was growing. During the same 
vears there was a similar percentage of de- 
crease in thefts— from 2,371 in 1878, to 2,081 
in 1879 and to 1,758 in 1880; in forgerv, from 
258 in 1878, to i55 in 1879 and to 131 in 1880; 
in the aggregate of eight principal felonies 
from 3,548«inl878, to 2,592 in 1880— while on 
the other hand the percentage of convictions 
increased. Our ovk^n City of Churches cannot 
present so clean a bill as is this showing from 
Texas. Moreover, in the opinion of the at- 
torney-general of Texas, the percentage of in- 
dictments in that State, to the whole number 
of criminal occiu-ences. is as favorable as any 
like proportion in any other part of the Union. 
A generation ago the lettirs G. T. T., moan- 
ing 'Gone to Texas,'— -indicated in tbe slang 
of the time the name of a fugitive from jus- 
tice. They now apply to as prudeiit and 



20 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



peaceable a coiiimunity of settlers as can be 
found in any of the older States, or in any of 
the newer States in which, as in Texas, im- 
migrants establish themselves upon the ever- 
spreading network of the railways. 

/ AG-RICULTaRE. 

Taking the word agriculture in its widest 
significjvtion as including the rearing of live 
stock, as well as the products of the earth, 
Texas is pre-eminently an agricultural coun- 
try. AYith her rich and inexhaustible soils, 
and her genial climate, inviting the farmer to 
labor the 3ear round in moderation, and not 
compelling him to hibernate, as it w^ere, for 
many montlis, 'vvhere is there a field which 
offers so many attractions to the man w^ho 
expects to earn his bread by the sweat of his 
brow ? 

PLANTING SEASON. 
The mild winters generally admit of corn 
planting in February, and cotton in March. 
Wheat is sowm in the fall, and harvested in 
May, so that flour from new wheat can be de- 
livered in any of the Northern or Eastern 
cities fully six wrecks in advance of flour from 
the older wheat-growing States. Field work 
can be done at all seasons of the year, and a 
loss of thirty days from out-door occupations, 
on account of heat, cold, or rain, in any one 
year, would be an over-estimate. During the 
cold, bleak winter months, when nearly all 
the farmers of the Northern and Eastern 
States are busy in the effort to keep the cold 
out and their stock from suffering, by con- 
stant attention, and feeding out corn, hay and 
other fodder, gathered during the summer, 

,the Texas farmer, in winter, enjoys mild, 
pleasant weather, and his flocks and herds 
are in good condition, feeding on the prairies 
or in the timbered bottom lands, well shelter- 
ed from the northern blasts that constitute 
the Texas winter, rarely lasting more than 
five days. 

Crops of Texas compared with the leading 
agricultural States south and west: 



Yield per Acre of 




< 
■< 
■< 
< 


13 
6.3 


o 

1 

O 

11 
7 


d 

3 

34.9 
18 

17 8 

35 9 
66 

1.51 


i 
< 

5 

Sz; 

32.8 
16 

14.5 

29 6 
64 

1.40 


m" 
O 
g 

)-) 

27 
13 6 
16.2 
35 9 

67 
1.49 


< 
< 


Indian C»ra ... . 
Wheat 


26 
16 

18 

37 

84 

1.59 

275 


12 
7.3 


33.9 

16 3 


Rve 


19 3 


Oats 

potatoes 


16 

102 

1 80 

132 


16 6 

73 

1..54 

164 


16 7 

67 

1.7.i 

i61 


36 
85 


my 


1 80 


Cotton 





We invite a careful examination of the fore- 
going tabulated statement of the leadmg agri- 
ctiltural products of Texas, as compared with 
seren of the principal agricultural States south 
and west. 

These figures are taken from the report of 
the United States Department of Agriculture 
for 1878, wliich is the latest authority obtain 
able. 

It wmII be observed that in the .staple cereals 
of Indian Corn, wheat, rye and oats, Texas 



compares favorably with the great grain- 
growing States, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and 
Kansas, whi]e»in cotton production she stands 
pre-eminent, as compared with the principal 
cotton producing Stares of the South. 

A fact that we desire to impress upon the 
thinking mind is rendered emphatic by this 
table, viz., that while the industrious farmer 
can produce the cereals here to the same extent 
and with as little labor as anywhere else, vet 
in Texas these have always been considered a 
secondary crop, for the reason that the extra- 
ordinary yield and quality of the cotton pro- 
duct, render it pre-eminently valuable to the 
farmer. If the same time, attention and care- 
ful husbandry were devoted to the cereals 
here, that distinguish the agriculture of the 
Western States mentioned above, there is 
every reason to believe that Texas would far 
outstrip them. 

The folowing is taken from the Farm and 
Orchard, an agricultural paper published in 
Palestine, Texas. 

A small but contented farmer furnishes t^ie 
Texas Farm and Orchard with the following 
statement of his crops and the amount of land 
cultivated by his own labor and that of his 
wife: 

"Ten acres of cotton, which will give five 
bales, 1250; 10 acres in corn, 180 bushels, 
$90; 1 acre of sw^eet potatoes, 300 bushels, 
$150; I4 acre of goobers, 50 bushels, $100: % 
acre of grass nuts, 12 bushels, $36; 14 acre of 
onions. 30 bushels, $60; 1 acre of suiiarcane, 
100 gallons, $50. His wife raised 150 chick- 
ens, $30; 50 lbs. butter, $12.50; saved 20 lbs. 
feathers, worth $10. He sheared 140 lbs. 
wool, $28; sold four beeves, $48; water- 
melons, $5, and will make 3000 lbs. pork, 
worth $180. He also made 40 bushels of 
wheat for his own use, besides vegetables, etc. 
Though the yield of each crop per acre is 
not by any means extraordinary, it demon- 
strates^ t>he great adaptability of Texas soils 
and climates to varied agriculture, and how 
an industrious and frugal farmer may easily 
increjise his store and provide against tlie ad- 
versities of poverty. This is only the ordinary 
result of industry and care upon the farm. 
Not an item shows above the common produc- 
tion of the country where Uie fields are care- 
fully and attentively tilled. It will be ol> 
served that two of the ordinary and most prof- 
itable crops are neglected by tliis contented 
farmer, to- wit oats and fruits. The value of 
these crops could have been added to with 
comparatively little additional labo':. In this 
section and upon these fertile soiis, industry 
and common prudence are always rewarded 
with adequate profits. Tlicse are but the 
usual results of industrious farming. The 
agriculturist who applies to his acres the proper 
toil is most certain to receive satisfactory re- 
turns, and those Avho Ihus strive always find 
in Texas a genial and contented home. 

COTTON. 

Cotton is new, and will ever continue to be, 
the special crop of Texas, because her soils 
and climate are most wonderfully adapted to 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



21 



its growth and maturity, and because it is one 
of the most protilable crops of the soil. It 
requires continuous labor in its production. 
The preparation of the soil should begin in 
♦lanuary, by deep and careful fallowing. In 
the months of February and March the land 
IS then thrown up in beds from three to live 
feet, accordmg to the strength of soil. Plant- 
ing is usually done by opening the beds or 
ridges with a small ' 'scooter'' or "bull-tongue" 
plow; the seed is sown then as regularly as 
possible, and covered with a harrow or drag. 
The better plan to cover is to run two furrows 
with a light turning plow, and afterwards 
dragging off with a block. The usual mode 
of cultivation, after the plants have come up, 
is to run beside the plants with a turning plow 
as near as possible, with the bar next to the 
plants, throwing the earth //-om them, then to 
follow with hoes chopping out the plants, 
leaving one or two plants standing every foot 
or foot and a half apart. The earth is then 
thrown back, taking care not to cover the 
small plants. The work after this is to keep 
the land stirred and prevent the growth of 
noxious weeds and grasses. The plants should 
be left to stand from two to four feet, accord- 
ing to the fertility of the land. Cotton should 
be cultivated, and the land very regularly 
stirred until the plant begins to open, which 
is usually in the months of July and August. 
The picking is done by hand, and is the most 
expensive part of its production. An aver- 
age hand can pick about 150 pounds per day. 
Taki ng the whole picking season , 1 , GOO pounds 
of seed cotton will make a bale of 500 pounds 
of lint. The picking season is from the mid- 
dle of August to the first of January. The 
ginning and baling is done upon the co-opera- 
tive system, the owner of the gin charging 
such a per cent, of the cotton for putting up 
a bale. The common price is one-twelfth of 
the cotton. It is sold either at the nearest 
market town or at some seaport. It is the 
easiest transported of all products, less liable 
to damage, and more value can be transported 
at a less charge than in any other product. 
The wagon that will bear, and the team that 
M'ill draw sixty bushels of wheat worth $60, 
will carry seven bales of cotton worth $350. 
The cotton may be thrown out to take the 
weather for weeks without any material dam- 
age, while the wheat or any other product of 
the farm would be wholly ruined. 

Like provision crops, cotton must ever be 
a staple production. Its adaptation to numer- 
ous uses will always require its production. 
It is the cheapest material from which cloth- 
ing can be made. Its demand will increase 
with the growth of the human family, and its 
uses will increase in proportion to the cheap- 
ness of its production and manufacture. 
Texas is peculiarly blessed in her wonderful 
adaptability to the growth of this special crop. 
The yield per acre upon her soil is greater 
than that of any other State in the Union, and 
its fibre is longer, more silky, and in all re- 
spects superior to all other American cottons. 
It is quoted i^d. higher in the Liverpool mar- 
ket than other cotton. There is not one per 



cent, of the lands adapted to cotton now un- 
der cultivation, although the yield the present 
year will be over a million bales, worth fifty 
millions' of dollars on the farm. 
INDIAN CORN. 

Indian corn or maize is a common crop upon 
every farm. It is not raised in Texas as a 
market product, cotton and sugar being 
the special crops of the State. Each farmer 
aims to raise just corn enough to supply his 
own need upon his farm. Consequently its 
cultivation is frequently neglected for other 
crops considered more profitable. The modes 
of cultivation are about the same as those 
practised in other States, with the exception 
of less care and attention. The average yield 
per acre is twenty-six bushels. Its weight 
per bushel is from sixty to sixty-four pounds. 
In the middle and northern portion of the 
State it bears a firm solid grain, keeps well, 
and seldom ever becomes musty. By proper 
tillage, such as deep plowing, thorough pul- 
verization and regular cultivation, the yield 
could be greatly increased. Owing to want 
of deep water at the Gulf ports, there is no 
market in Texas for corn, except that which 
is created by the local demand. If the facili- 
ties for transportation were adequate, the 
fecundity of Texas soils in this product would 
soon make it one of the most important of the 
marketable crops of the State. It is now only 
raised for domestic consumption, being the 
chief feed crop of the farms. The crop of 
1880 is immense, and the price will not exceed 
twenty-five cents per bushel, except in a few 
localities. 

OATS. 

It is only of late years that oats have been 
generally cultivated. Until the introduction 
of the red non-rusting oat, it was a precarious 
crop, and was seldom attempted by the farm- 
ers of the State. With this new variety it is 
a certain and prolific crop. The average 
yield is thirty-seven bushels per acre. It is, 
however, cultivated now only for home use. 
Texas oats are of superior qualit3^ and com- 
mand the highe"^ price in the New Orleans 
market. LTpon the rich black lands or on the 
stiff alluvial bottom lands the yield is marvel- 
lous, often exceeding one hundred bushels 
per acre. 

SUGAR. 

This important agricultural industry has 
not attained that position in Texas to which 
its merits entitle it, taking into consideration 
the large body of land capable of production 
with profitable results. It is true that some 
few planters have devoted to the production 
of sugar in this State a great deal of attention 
and a large amount of capital, but the ma 
jority of persons engaged in this industry ai (? 
planters on a very small scale, and have but 
limited means. The larger concerns, how- 
ever, are from year to year adding to their 
capacity and ability to produce sugar to a 
profitable extent, and are demonstrattng fully 
the value of this crop, when handled upon a 
substantial basis. What would add more 
than anything else to the encouragement of 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



sugar production in Texas, would be the 
establisiimeut of a sugar refinery and cooper- 
age somewhere in the State. For the latter 
industiy the native timbers on the Sabine and 
Neches rivers offer every inducement for 
profitable investment, which should be insti- 
tuted with an idea to cover cooperage for 
flour production as well as sugar. In this 
line there could be no question of success; 
and as to final results in the instituticM of a 
sugar refinery, the heavy expense incident to 
transportation and wastage of raw sugar in 
course of refinement, leaves but little doubt 
of the value and economy of such an enter- 
prise. 

The sugar crop of 1878, of which only we 
have statistics by us, met with serious disaster 
in a number of instances from excessive rains 
late in the season, aud other untoward circum- 
stances. We are prepared to give the exact 
product of the State in sugar and molasses — 
with the exception of the amount of molasse^s 
used direct from the plantations in the up- 
country — the data being furnished by mercan- 
tile houses in Houston and Galveston. The 
figures are exact. The crop of the State was 
handled by five parties in Houston and eleven 
parties in Galveston. The Houston merchants 
handled 2,155 hogsheads sugar and 5,156 bar- 
rels molasses; the Galveston" merchants 3,209 
hogsheads sugar and 6,388 barrels molasses. 
Add to this a shipment of 300 hogsheads sugar 
and 700 barrels molasses from ludianola to 
New Orleans, and the total crop of the State 
reaches 5,664 hogsheads sugar and 12,2-14 bar- 
rels molasses. The value of sugar aud molas- 
ses produced in Texas for the year is roundly 
stated at $433,969. Favorable circumstances 
and a judicious application of capital in the 
future will yet make sugar production in this 
State a matter of far more than ordinary 
mom.ent. Pressed to its full capacity, sugar 
production should rank only second to the 
great staple, cotton itseli. 
WHEAT. 

This important factor in the composition of 
crops has not attained that position in Texas 
lo which its merits entitle it. In the immense 
prairie region of the State, where the soil and 
climate are most favorable, wheat is, as yet, 
;iri element of production subsidiary to the 
.■>inj)le crop of cotton. It occupies in the grain- 
licit of Texas the same position held by corn 
In llie Northwestern States, where wheat is 
the principal market crop. The initial period 
of successful wheat-growing and milling in 
the State dates back only six years, when an 
<ibun(iant yield and excellent quality of grain, 
won for Texas a reputation which stimulated 
production, and rapidly increased her milling 
<;apacity. Data from well-informed sources 
tixe.s the yield of that and subsequent years at- 

BiiHliels. Bushels. 

1875 .3,01)0.01)0 I 1H78 4,000,000 

1876 2,250,0(10 | 1879 2,000,000 

1877... 2,0()0,0(;0 I 1880 1,300,000 

The milling capacity of llie State is in ad- 
vance of profhietion, and more than ami>le to 
•supply the population oT the State with flour. 
The crop of 1879 did not run its mills but IJO 



working days, on two-thirds time. The mar 
keted crop was 1,737,817 bushels, and the 
actual consumption, during the 4I4 months 
was 1,784,206 bushels, requiring an importa- 
tion of 46,390 bushels from Kansas and Mis- 
souri. If the mills of the State were run to 
their maximum capacity for twelve hours per 
day, they would not only bread the State, but 
give a surplus of over 500,000 ban-els of flour 
for exportation, as will be seen by the. annexed 
tabular statement, derived from authentic 
sources : 



Location. 


S3» 

;5o 


5| 




0^- 


11^ 






18 
15 
14 
11 
8 
8 
8 
8 
5 
8 
6 
4 
5 
5 
28 


$186,100 
99,400 


51 
29 


3,080 

2,985 

2.070 

2,420 

1,635 

1,500 

1,400 

1,445 

985 

1,300 

900 

300 

400 

300 

3,500 


8 
8 
8 
b 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 
8 

8 
8 
8 


4 


Collin...., 


5 


Ellis 


81,380 22 


5 


Dallas 


102,200 
41,5(10 
31,tX)0 
60,800 
24,900 
33,300 
50,000 
28,000 
5,500 
10,800 
18,000 

220,300 


30 
16 
15 
19 
14 
10 
13 
10 
6 
8 
10 
57 


5 


Kaufman 

Cooke 


5 


Tarrant 


5 


Hill 


4 


Johnson .... 


4 


Parker .. 

Denton 


4 
4 


Wise 

Montague 

H oud . .... 


3 


Otlier points 


5 


1 149 


$993,180 


310 


24,220 


8 


4^4 



Actual consumption per year, 1,784,207 bushels. 
Maximum capacity per year, 7,556,640 bushels. 

A review of the crops since 1875 will show 
the disadvantages with which the %vhe^t- 
grower had to contend, and the causes whi'cli 
are operating in retarding production. The 
crop of 1875 was abundant in yield and super 
ior in quality, and, as already stated, stimu- 
lated production and increased the number 
and capacity of the mills of the State, in- 
creased acreage was planted in 1876, but, ow- 
ing to an unfavorable season, the yield was 
less in aggregate than the previous year, and 
the quality of the grain inferior. The follow- 
ing year, 1877, was disastrous, the early wheat 
being cut short and the late cro^) almost to- 
tally destroyed by rust. The crop of 1878— 
the largest ever raised in the State — was 
ruined in quality during the harvesting period, 
and the prod; cf, as a crop, was not marketed. 
In J 879 the acreage was increased slightly, but 
the crop cut short by drouth. The quality 
of the grain, however, retrieved the reputation 
of Texas mills, which had been impaiied by 
the damaged croj) of the previous yeai-. The 
crop of tiie current year, reduced in acreage 
by the severity of tlu; drouth of 1879, which 
was a bar to "breaking u]) land, was damaged 
by reason of continuous rains after the harxest 
season. 

The misfortunes attending the production 
of wheat during the past five years are charge- 
able to sniftless cultivation, want of manage- 
ment in saving the crop after harvest, juid 
carelessness in^lhe selection of seed, cleaning 
and grading of the grain. The neglect of these 
conditions,' indispensable to successful and 
piofitable wheat growing, is due, as intimated 



TEXA.S: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



above, to the over-influence of cotton as a 
staple ciop, as exhibited below. The tal)le 
deti-jils the productions oi 1879 in the third 
con<rressional district, an exceptionally bad 



year for corn and small grain, whijh, in many 
localities, were totally destroyed by the sever- 
est drouth experienced in the State in fifteen 
years : 





Tilled 


C 


RX. 


O 


VTS. 


Wheat. 


COTTO.V. 


Tilled 


COUNTrES. 


m 

1879. 


















Acres. 


Bushels. 


Acres. 


Busiiels. 


•\cres 


Bushels. 


Acres. 


Bales. 


1880. 


Collin 


1.35,901 


53.178 


994.20fi 


11.014 


.333,188 


23.813 


183,610 


47,896 


22.203 


1 67.. 571 


Cooke 


79.78(J 


31,400 


498,400 


5.942 


1J4.782 


9.371 


58,026 


33.0(i7 


16.030 


89.. 500 


Clay 


5iU,9?0 


7,866 


lJ7.99(i 


2,622 


52,440 


2.022 


20,976 


7,866 


3,440 


20 976 


Callahan... 


b,20r) 


3.400 


27.200 


65 


810 


l,24t) 


6.2(10 


500 


125 


8,2.50 


Dallas 


169.03.T 


48,55 


6.55,914 


10.292 


236,442 


28.395 


207.08; 


.51,798 


28,160 


203 808 


Denton. ... 


62.872 


23.=>77 


4t7,963 


7,.5.59 


151,180 


8.160 


65.280 


2 U 76 


1 1 ,320 


62,775 


Ellis 


15«,8^1 


42,960 


581,191 


6,431 


168,490 


19.623 


184.2.^9 


53 8.S5 


19,917 


183,412 


Erarh 


42,476 


12141 


230. t)^ 9 


3,993 


79 H60 


4,201 


37 809 


12,141 


6,030 


32. .^75 


Gravson 


223.277 


54.864 


961.805 


9,729 


184,857 


15,903 


86,182 


40.581 


19.223 


183,412 


Hiir 


82.777 


31.. 523 


324 ()32 


4,485 


137,786 


6,475 


50,680 


37.094 


8.286 


115.036 


Hood 


19,600 


8 500 


127,50(1 


2.. 500 


75.000 


600 


3,211(1 


8.000 


3.800 


25.000 


Johnson.... 


94,620 


35,751 


372,068 


5.194 


131.610 


13,405 


88,724 


40,270 


13,315 


243,665 


Jack 


20,168 


9,813 


147,195 


3,261 


65,220 


3,281 


26,248 


9 813 


4.407 


26,175 


Kaufman.. . 


59..'iO.T 


21,109 


321,235 


3,975 


94.764 


7,8:^0 


62,60) 


23,601 


9466 


75,257 


Montague. . 


26,896 


10.086 


151. V9« 


3,3' 


66,000 


3.424 


27.392 


10,086 


4,068 


26.900 


Parker .... 


56,400 


28,400 


4.6 000 


1,500 


50.000 


5.000 


22.000 


21 ,('00 


1,000 


70,000 


Palo Pinto. 


18,576 


6,966 


104, 4Pn 


2,322 


46.440 


2.322 


18,576 


6 966 


3.330 


18,600 


Rockwall... 


25,381 


9,657 


127,999 


1.224 


34.816 


2 871 


23,732 


8.62r 


3,714 


33,518 


Tarrant. 


65,248 


24,468 


367,02c 


8,156 


163.120 


8,156 


65,248 


24.468 


12,130 


65,2.50 


Wise 


58,552 


21,710 


325,695 


7,500 


150,000 


7,642 


59,136 


21,700 


10,200 


60,575 


Frontier 






















Counties. 


51,798 


20,212 


281,562 


10,310 


144,796 


6,629 


48.644 


14.647 


6,158 


52,991 


Total 


1,278,490 


506,131 


7,603,034 


111,374 


2,490,601 


181,453 


1,345,56() 


179,532 203,322 


1,755,047 



To arrive at the acreage in cotton in the 
grain belt, estimates for Fannin, Lamar, Hunt, 
Rains, Van Zandt, Navarro, Limestone, Mc- 
Lennan. Bosque, and other counties not com- 
prised in the third congressional district, must 
be added to the above table, which swell the 
cotton acreage in round figures to 900,000 
acres, against 250,000 acres in wheat, yielding 
the crop of 1879. This disparity in quantity 
of land tilled, militates against the production 
and quality of the wheat, the time necessary 
to the proper preparation of land for the grain 
crop being demanded for and devoted to the 
gathering of the cotton crop. With a judi- 
cious distribution of crops, care in the selec- 
tion of seed, thorough preparation of land, 
provisions against wet harvesting periods and 
careful grading, the factors, soil and climate, 
quality of grain, and an unlimited demand for 
production, will align Texas, in the near 
future, with the foremost wheat growing 
States in the Union. 

The table illustrates the advantages of di- 
versified crops, and is suggestive of the won- 
derful capabilities of that portion of the State 
where the two great staples, cotton and wheat, 
are grown successfully side by side. The 
crop result demonstrates the certainty of a 
fair return in this favored section, under the 
most adverse season. For instance, Grayson, 
located on Red River, is ordinarily a prolific 
^•nall graiin county, and Hill, located on the 
Brazos River, reputed to be one of the best 
cotton counties. An exceptionally bad crop- 
ping year, instead of being disastrous to the 
farmer, as would have been the ease had the 
soil, as elsewhere, been adapted solely to either 
cotton or wheat, simply transformsthe latter 
into a wheat county and the former into a cot- 
ton county. Another feature; is the fact, that 



notwithstanding the short crops of 1879. con- 
fidence in the capabilities of the land has 
stimulated an activity in developing farms- in 
1880— the increased acreage in twenty-two 
counties heard from being 476,557 acres. 

Texas is so young a State that wheat-grow- 
ing in it may be considered as yet experimen- 
tal, and that the experiments have not so far 
determined what is the best variety to grow. 
In Southern Texas no man for a long time 
thought of sowing oats, because the crop was 
considered certain to be destroyed by rust. 
Yet at last a variety was found which entirely 
resists the rust, and now oats are extensively 
grown in Southern Texas, yielding very large 
crops. So, a short time ago, no man in Cen- 
tral Texas much below the latitude of Austin, 
thought of sowing wheat on account of the 
rust; but at last the Nicaragua variety turned 
up, which proved admirably suited to the 
lower portion of the State, resisting rust and 
yielding from twenty to forty-five bushels to 
the acre. It is now considerabl}' grown in 
those parts, and would be very extensively 
grown if the Texas millers would procure the 
right sort of machinery for grinding it. In- 
stead of doing so, they have discouraged its 
production. So in North Texas and other 
portions of the State, the variety best adapted 
remains yet to be discovered, and no doubt 
will be discovered soon. 

We will take the liberty of making a sug- 
gestion on this point, and hope it will be borne 
in mind. It is a suggestion on a point of great 
value. The wheat sown in Texas, except the 
Nicaragua, has all come from the North, from 
regions whose soil and climatic conditions 
differ widely from our own. Would it not be 
better to get it from southern countries whose 
soil and climatic conditions are very similar 



24 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



to our own? Does it not look reasonable and 
natural? It undoubtedly seems so. In Mexico 
and California they have a climate and soil re- 
markably akin to ours, and it is a well-known 
fact that these two countries are renowned for 
the production of wheat — not only for the quan- 
tity to the acre, but for the surpassing excell- 
ence of the article. Does not common sense sug- 
gest that we should go to those regions to get 
our seed-wheat, rather than to Illinois and 
Ohio? Let some of our enterprising agricul- 
turists try it, and we do not question that they 
will find themselves largely benefited. 

The wheat of Spain would also be worth 
attention in this direction. That region has a 
climate very much like our own, and its wheat 
stands at the very head of the wheats of the 
world. The wheat of Mexico was derived 
from Spain, and the most of that grown in 
California was derived from Mexico. The 
wheat so largely imported from Trieste, on 
the Mediterranean, also deserves attention. 

It is worthy of mention that the wheat of 
Texas ripens from six weeks to two months in 
advance of that of the Northwestern States, 
and that in general it weighs much more to 
the bushel, and has a much smaller per cent, 
of moisture. What it lacks in moisture as 
compared with the Northern wheat, it makes 
up in solid nutritious elements, It is there- 
fore a richer wheat than the Northern wheat, 
and a pound of its flour will make more bread 
than a pound of Northern flour. It would 
also bear transportation over the seas, especi- 
ally through tropical latitudes, much better. 
No man ever knew a barrel of Texas flour to 
sour in Texas, though it has been kept in 
warehouses in Galveston, more than a year, 
to try it ; while the flour from the North soon 
sours in the South. Texas should become a 
very large exporter of flour, particularly to 
South America and the West Indies. She 
will become this soon if her wheat industry 
is only properly fostered and encouraged m- 
telligently, as it should be. 

As evidence of the value of Nicaragua 
wheat, which has been so successfully grown 
wherever tried in Southern and Western 
Texas, we clip the following from the Waco 
EKaminer of June 25, 1881 : 

NICARAGUA WHEAT-A BONANZA. 

" From time to time, for several years past, 
the Examiner has entered a plea in behalf of 
the Nicaragua as a good wheat, worth, cer 
tainly, very much more than it brings in mar- 
ket, if only the mills in this country were pre- 
pared to grind it. But no less persistently 
has it been decried, certain millers going to 
the extreme of asserting that, strictly speak- 
ing, the Nicaragua is no wheat at all, but a 
sort of barley, devoid of the flowing or flour- 
ing property which distinguishes the standard 
grain of the queen cereal. Though not very 
well up in such matters, we have, with all 
due respect, doubted the correctness of this 
conclusion and have in every way possible en- 
couraged investigation as to the value of this 
grain in other markets, notably New Orleans 
and Liverpool. It is with no little satisfac- 



tion that we now learn after so" long a time 
and after so many trials and disappointments 
that the wheat, the Nicaragua, a sample of 
which was sent, is pronounced by Messrs 
Hartly, Watson «fc Co., grain merchants, of 
Liverpool, a good hard wheat, worth in that 
market $1.30 a bushel. In confirmation of 
this valuation, we yesterday saw a telegram 
from a responsible merchant of Houston, 
stating that he was offered $1.15 a bushel for 
the Nicaragua, sacked and delivered on board 
a vessel in New Orleans. The cost of trans- 
portation added makes $1.80 the Liverpool 
valuation. If, now, this wheat is worth $1.30 
in Liverpool, or $1.15*on board a vessel in 
New Orleans, what is it, rather what ought 
it to be worth a bushel here in Waco or at 
other points in the interior ? 

' ' The cost of transportation from this point 
is per car-load of 20,000 to 24,000 lbs. to Hous- 
ton, $40; to Galveston, $50; and to New Or- 
leans, $80, or in round figures about 24c. a bush- 
el to New Orleans. Now, with these figures 
before us, what ought Nicaragua wheat to be 
worth in this market ? The market price, we 
believe, is, at Waco and other places gener 
ally over the State, 40 to 50c. a bushel. Add 
transportation say 25c. , and the buyer has a 
profit of 75c. from $1.15, forty cents a bushel ! 
A bonanza for the buyer certainly, whether 
very profitable to the producer or not. With 
these facts before them, however, producers 
ought to be able to come in for a little share 
of the profits to be realized on the much de- 
cried Nicaragua wheat — a crop which of all 
others succeeds best in Texas, and which if 
it maintain the price above quoted will prove 
a veritable bonanza, not to a few buyers only, 
but to the farming interest of the State." 
AMBER CANE. 

The earlier experiments in the manufacture 
of syrup and sugar from the Sorghum cane 
were unsuccessful to a certain extent in this 
State, as they were throughout the Union 
generally. This was mainly owing to the 
crude and imperfect appliances and machin- 
ery used in the manufacture of its products. 

A few years since, however, the Amber 
cane was introduced, and since its introduc- 
tion the efforts in this branch of industry 
have resulted in the realization of the most 
sanguine hopes. 

Proper machinery is being introduced for 
expressing the juice and manufacturing it, 
and syrup and sugar of a very superior quali- 
ty are now made at their own homes by some 
of our farmers at a very small cost. 

The following extract is clipped from the 
Austin Statesman of Nov. 5, 1880: 

" Those who have made trial of the Amber 
cane in Western Texas this year report that 
the experiment was attended with the most 
satisfactory results. The Amber cane is ex- 
cellent for making sugar and molasses, and its 
cultivation is recommended to every farmer. " 

POTATOES. 

Both sweet and Irish are raised in great 
abundance. The former grow to perfection 
in every part of the State, and the latter are 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



25 



equally fine, but do not keep so well. Irish 
potatoes ripen very early, and a profitable 
business is done shipping them to Nortliern 
markets before the new crop comes in in that 
section. 

WILD GRASSES. 

Perhaps no country in the world has become 
more famous than Texas for its wild grasses, 
which everywhere cover the untilled soil with 
a sea of the greenest verdure. Of these there 
are several kinds, the most noted of which are 
the "mesquite" (pronounced "muskeet') and 
the "gama." The mesquite is a native of 
Middle and Western Texas, is very hardy, a 
rapid growth, and but little affected by dry 
weather. All kinds of stock are fond of it, 
and it is very nutritious and fattening, There 
are two kinds, the "bearded" and "curly," the 
latter a short curly grass, as its name implies, 
particularly adapted to sheep and horses. 
The "gaina" grass delights in dry uplands, 
and is found in its greatest glory west of the 
Pecos River and along the upper Rio Grande. 
These high, drouthy table-lands are covered 
with a dense growth of "gama" which, al- 
though it may be brown and sere in appear- 
ance, is yet green and succulent near its roots 
in the greatest drouths. Stock of all kinds 
are exceedingly fond of it, and keep rolling 
fat upon its succulent leaves even in the driest 
and coldest winters. 

But little attention has been paid yet in 
Texas to the cultivated grasses, but many 
kinds, especially the "Bermuda," do well, and 
the time is not far distant when the thrifty 
farmer will find it to his interest to aid nature 
in this, as in her other desirable products. 
TOBACCO CULTURE IN TEXAS. 

Previous to the late war tobacco was culti- 
vated with considerable -success in most of the 
Southern States, and more especially in Vir- 
ginia and the Carolinas, and yet a considerable 
portion of the export supply, before and since 
the war, has been produced in Connecticut, 
Ohio, Indiana, and other Northern States, 
where the climate and soil are far inferior in 
the growth of that product to that of the 
Southern States. 

During the past few years, experiments of a 
most satisfactory character in tobacco growing 
have been made in many counties in" Texas. 
These experiments have shown most conclu- 
sively that the soil in many sections of this 
State is most admirably adapted to the differ- 
ent varieties of this staple. It is true that 
these tests have been made chiefly in the cen- 
tral counties of the State, yet it is the opinion 
of experienced tobacco planters m other States, 
that tobacco can be produced advantageously 
in nearly every portion of the State, and that 
Texas is destined in the immediate future to 
become one of the largest and most excellent 
tobacco producing States in the Union. There 
are less dangers to the crop there from early 
frosts than in Virginia, and the same is true, 
when protracted droughts are taken into con- 
sideration. 

FLOWER CULTURE. 

The cultivation of flowers in Texas can 



hardly be called an industry, because they 
come forth to bud and blossom, a3 the rain 
comes to water the earth, and the sunlight 
comes to gladden the morning, and the leaves 
put forth to yield a grateful shade. It is 
more of a recreation and pleasuie than an in- 
dustry to cultivate the flowers in a climate 
where there is perpetual bloom. Every 
variety known to a tropical clime is there 
grown, and the wondrous plumage of the 
birds of South America has not more beau*;y 
and combination of colors than the flowers of 
Texas. They adorn the garden, the home 
and the prairie, and are everywhere the cheer- 
ful emblems of a cultured and refined civili- 
zation. A State, therefore, that adds to its 
magnificent crops of cotton, grain, vegetables; 
its vast herds of cattle and horses, and flocks 
of sheep, the fruits and flowers that enrich 
and make happy its citizens, justly claims the 
favorable attention of the world 
FRUIT CULTURE. 

The original Texans were badly demoral- 
ized on the subject of fruit-growing, because 
of the failure of so many untried varieties 
which must necessarily have to pass the or- 
deal of a new climate in reaching a success 
f ul list. Now we plant with confidence many 
varieties of apples, pears, peaches, plums, 
grapes and small fruits. 

As soon as experimental tests had settled 
the orchardist down upon the three May ap- 
ples, including the Red Astrachan, the Red 
June and Earl}'^ Harvestf or the month of June ; 
the Sweet Bough and Horse Apple for July; 
the August Pippin for August: the Autumn 
Strawberry for fall, and the Ben Davis and 
Shockly for winter, we began to see that 
Texas was an apple country. The foregoing 
varieties all ripen well in our climate, with- 
out rot-spot or tan, and are as well developed 
and possess as fine flavor as if raised in higher 
latitudes. These kinds are successful any- 
where above latitude 30*^. 

Pears grow well and bear well here. The 
trees have been attacked by blight only twice 
in our whole history. The Bartlett and 
Duchess came to us so highly recommended 
that it precludes experiments to a great de- 
gree with other sorts. We believe there is a 
better list of pears for Texas than these, al- 
though the farmer and orchardist are suc- 
ceeding well with these. 

The peach is a perfect success, and when 
shown in the markets or exhibitions of the 
northwest, excites the wonder and admira- 
tion of those who have always been accus- 
tomed to the same varieties. As an evidence 
that Texas possesses natural capabilities in 
soil and climate for the perfect development 
of the peach by her hundreds of seedlings, 
which are overtopping the standard sorts in 
size, flavor and excellence, a peach now called 
Senator Reagan, decidedly the best peach 
every way, in size, beauty and flavor, that 
has yet been produced, was first grown in 
Texas on the farm of the Hon. J. H. Reagan, 
of Anderson count}', and we might point to 
many remarkable products in the way of 
peaches in our country, all grown from seed 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



selected from the fine varieties of the grafted 
sorts. 

Grapes of varieties which suit our climate, 
and these only of the species ^Estivalis, are 
successful and healthy. Some vineyards 
have reached the age of twenty years, and 
have not failed in producing good annual 
crops during the time. 

Grapes of the species ^stivalis are the best 
American grapes for wines, according to re- 
ports from highest authorities, and we have 
at least a dozen kinds of them which suit our 
country. 

The Lenoir for our coast, tlie McKee for 
the central territory, and the Herbemont for 
northern Texas, liave pi-oved perfect successes 
thus far. 

All plums of the Chickasaw varieties yield 
certain and profitable crops, and of these the 
Brill, Wildgoose and Miner take the lead for 
a succession, and never fail to bear, and are 
but slightly affected by the curculio. 

Blackberries and straw^berries — the latter, 
of select varieties — give perfect satisfaction 
and require no protection in the winter. 

The former is a native fruit, and the intro- 
duced finer varieties scarcely excel our na- 
tives. 

Raspberries are cultivated a great deal in 
Middle, Eastern and Northern Texas. The 
black-caps are best adapted to our climate. 

We might add that apples, pears, peaches 
and plums begin to ripen on the tree from the 
6th to the 20th of May, and continue to ripen 
to the 25th of November, and all this pro 
tracted season is filled with abundant varie- 
ties, so as to keep them all the time on the 
table or on the way to market. 

The fig attains its greatest perfection in the 
south and southwestern portions of Texas. 
No-w^here else is this fruit so luscious and so 
tempting, the small purple fig fairly bursting 
open when ripe with its own sweetness. In 
its season it is a welcome addition to the 
breakfast table, and at dinner it is not the 
least attractive portion of the dessert, but no 
attempt is made to utilize what is not thus 
used, and the birds aad poultry generally 
consume the surplus crop. There is no rea- 
son why it should not be dried and become a 
valuable article of consumption and export. 

BEES AND HONEY. 

Bees and honey are natural products of 
Texas. Wild bees are found here in great 
plenty, and they thrive well when domesti- 
cated. But very little attention has been paid 
to this industry, although we hear recently of 
several instances where bee culture has been 
very successfully carried on. Still it has not 
been altogether neglected, for in nearly every 
neighborhood a few swarms may be found, 
whicli. however, are generally allowed to take 
care of themselves. Some are placed in empty 
barrels, with sticks across them; others in dis- 
carded goods boxes; others in hollow trees 
sawed off in sections. The Texas "bee house" 
is generally a most primitive institution and a 
"makeshift." They may be seen scattered 
about promiscuously, in the fence-corners, 



under shade trees, in front 3^ards, back yards, 
gardens— anywhere about the premises. As 
to the care which they receive, generally it 
amounts to about this: they are hived where 
they swarm, and robbed when the family re- 
quires honey. 

This business is extremely profitable in 
many countries and certainly should be in 
Texas, where flowers bloom every month and 
during most of the year in the greatest pro- 
fusion. It is a beautiful occupation, that of 
rearing bees, and one that can be prosecuted, 
on quite an extensive scale, with little or no 
capital. Every family, even of renters, might 
have a few stands of bees. It is a business in 
which ladies may pleasantly and profitably en- 
gage. 

GARDEN VEGETABLES AND MELONS. 

Almost all garden vegetables do well in 
Texas, although her diversity of soil, climate, 
etc., is so great that an intelligent adaptation 
to the peculiarities of the locality must be 
carefully studied by the successful cultivator. 

Root vegetables grow particularly well and 
finer potatoes, beets, parsnips, carrots, turnips, 
radishes, onions, etc. , are not raised anywhere. 

Of melons, both water and musk, we have a 
greater variety, and they grow to absolute per- 
fection. Watermelons attain to enormoys 
proportions, and the cantaloupes of Texas are 
unrivalled in flavor. Squashes and pumpkins 
do well and are richly flavored, and no finer 
tomatoes are grown. No finer beans and peas 
can be grown than those produced here. 
WILD FRUITS, NUTS AND BERRIES. 

Texas is blessed with a reasonable share of 
native products coming under this head, such 
as plums, persimmons, grapes and black and 
dew-berries. The "mustang" grape grows 
everywhere in the river bottoms in great lux- 
uriance, and from it an excellent quality of red 
wine is frequently manufactured. The "post- 
oak" grape, seems to be a modification of the 
former, andis very plentiful on sandy uplands. 
Blackberries are very abundant in the eastern 
part of the State, and dew-berries in the middle 
and western portions; both of these are too 
well-known to require description. In Eastern 
Texas the walnut and the hickory-nut are 
common, while Middle, Northern, and parti- 
cularly Western Texas, are the native home of 
the "pecan," which here grows to its greatest 
perfection, and which from its "toofhsome- 
ness" has become famous all the world over 
and Is yearly exported in large quantities. 
Statistics on the yield and quantity of this nut 
annually exported from the State have never 
been collected, so far as we know, but it is safe 
to estimate that the pecan tree, without any 
cultivation, yields an annual revenue of not 
less tan two million dollars. The nut sells 
readily, even at points far removed in the in- 
terior from railroad trausportatior, at from 
$1.50 to $2.00 per bushel. We are not aware 
that the tree has been cultivated to any extent, 
but it is safe to predict that a handsome addi- 
tion to the product of his farm could, in ten 
years, be secured by any farmer in Western 
Texas, who would plant and give a little at^ 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



27 



tention to a small plantation of this valuable 
nut. As an evidence of the value of the pecan 
crop this season we clip the following para- 
irraph from the Galveston Netns of November 
5, lJ^80: 

PAYETTE COUNTY. 

"Mr. Dignowitz says, that not more than 
one-fourth of the cotton produced in tlie vicin- 
ity of La Grange has been picked. Colored 
men have abandoned the cotton-fields, and 
gone to gathering pecans, at which they real- 
ize about twice as much money as they do 
picking cotton. The demand for labor is very 
great," 

GRAPES, WILD AND DOMESTIC. 

Texas is rich in wild grapes. There is no 
portion of the State except the Staked Plain, 
. in which they are not found in abundance. 
Of these perhaps the most important is the 
Mustang, from its great abundance, wide habi- 
tat, and sterling wine-making properties. It 
IS found in nearly every portion of the State, 
in the valleys of the streams, climbing to the 
tops of the tallest trees, and often extends out 
into the forests away from the streams. It is, 
we believe, confined exclusively to Texas, and 
among botanists is classed as a vine with itself, 
being distinct from all other classes of grapes. 
It is the most vigorous grower of all and none 
exceed it ia abundant bearing. We have seen 
the vines sometimes so full of the ripe fruit, 
that had the leaves been stripped off, they 
would have presented almost the appearance 
of a vast solid mass of grapes. The fruit is 
dark purple or black, nearly half an inch in 
diameter. The pulp is white or pearly in ap- 
pearance They are not a table-grape, and re- 
quire to be eaten with some care in order to 
be palatable. There is an acrid juice between 
the pulp and the skin, which when taken in 
the mouth produces a disagreeable, somewhat 
stinging and '"puckering" sensation. The skin 
may be easily stripped off, leaving the pulp 
still adhering to the stem; and as the acrid 
juice goes with the skin, they may then be eaten 
with relish. They are especially refreshing to 
the traveller on horseback on a warm summer 
day,, when he stops in the shade to rest, and 
more likely to be esteemed by liim as a food-grape 
than by anyone else. Their great merit is in 
wine making. When well treated it makes a 
robust wine of stout body, superior in* intoxi- 
cating properties to any of the French clarets 
with which we are acquainted. It has a de- 
cidedly game flavor, and the lines of Long- 
fekow are not inappropriate : 

" The red Mnstang 

Whoee clusters hang: 
O'er the waves of the Colorado; 

And the fiery flood 

Of whose purple lilood 
Has a dash of Spanish bravado." 

Again it may be handled so as to make a 
mild claret ; and we have tried some made by 
Col. Ashbel Smith, of Harris county, which 
had a remarkably rich flavor, distinguishing 
it from all other wines. The Germans and 
Bohemians of Western Texas make quanti- 
ties of it, but mainly for their own use Very 
little finds its way on the markets. We be- 
lieve the wild Mustang — "cut throat" as it is 



often called by the Texans — has a big future 
in it as a wine grape. We want skilled wine- 
makers to turn its good qualities to account. 
It has no diseases, and its crops are certain at 
all seasons. It may, no doubt, be much im- 
proved by selection and cultivation, as we 
have often noticed marked differences in the 
quality of the grapes taken from different 
vines, some being much better than others in 
sweetness and juiciness. 

Next in importance probably is the "post- 
oak grape." It is classed by some botanists 
as a variety of Vitzs Labrusca, by others as of 
the Vitis ^divalis; but Dr. ' Buckley, of 
Texas, considers it a distinct species, and h;is 
named it Vitis Liucecumi, after Dr. Gid. Lin- 
cecum, a well known Texas naturalist, now 
dead. Dr. Buckley is probably right. It is 
found in most of the post- oak regions in the 
State, and is a good medium-sized grape, very- 
palatable and good for wine. It has been do- 
mesticated to some extent and shows great 
improvement by cultivation. Dr. Yoakum 
grows in his extensive nurseries at Larissa, 
Cherokee county, a grape which he calls 
" McKee's Ever-bearing," and which is mere- 
ly the post-oak grape improved by cultiva- 
tion. It has greatly increased in size, flavor 
and juiciness, and is considered by him a 
great acquisition. 

The muscadine or ' ' buUace" is common in 
Eastern Texas, and is the same as the grape 
of that name found all over the Southern 
States. 

In the highland and mountainous districts, 
the "mountain grape" grows abundantly. 
Dr. Buckley classes it as a distinct species, 
calling it Vitis Monticola, but others class it 
with Vitis Supestris. It is a bluish grape, 
about the size of buckshot, and covered with 
a whitish "bloom," very sweet and altogether 
excellent. It is a great bearer, and not being 
much of a climber its large bunches are easily 
gathered. This grape deserves cultivation, 
which would no doubt add much to its al- 
ready excellent qualities. It is full of juice 
and makes a sprightly wine. 

Winter grapes abound along the water- 
courses of Western Texas, but are very small, 
black and sour — as they are everywhere else 
that we have seen them. Vitis Suprestes, very 
much like the mountain grape, if it be not 
the same, grows in the same localities. 

Of the cultivated or domestic grapes the 
Herbemont and Black Spanish are undoub- 
tedly tke best so far. They are native South- 
ern grapes of the Vitis .Af^stivalts. They com- 
bine every excellence except that of size, being 
about a half inch in diameter. They are 
equally well adapted to the table and the 
wine-maker, the Herbemont furnishing a light- 
colored wine, and the Black Spanish a dark 
colored. They grow luxuriantly and yield 
large crops everywhere in Texas, and are sub- 
ject to no diseases or damaging attack from 
insects. In these two grapes the Texans have 
a great gift indeed. The famous "Ei Paso" 
grapes, from which the Mexicans on the Upper 
Rio Grande make their celebrated wines and 
brandies, are but the Herbemont and Black 



28 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



Spanish under another name. The latter 
grape no doubt derived the name by which it 
is known in Texas, from its having apparently 
been disseminated over the State from that 
direction. How it happened to be largely cul- 
tivated in that quarter lirst is one of the unex- 
plained tilings, but it is probably due to the 
enterprising Jesuit priests, who some two 
centuries ago wandered all over the country 
afoot, and often alone among the Indians. 
These smgular and devoted people, all of them 
scholars and naturalists, were quick to find 
out the good things of nature and to utilize 
them. They cultivated these grapes first on 
the Rio Grande, because their nearest "mis- 
sions" to Texas were first established there. 
The Herbemont and Black Spanish differ only 
in color, the first being light-skinned and the 
latter dark-skinned. Perhaps there may be 
also a slight advantage in the Herbemont in 
size of fruit. 

Many vineyards of these grapes are grown 
in various parts of Texas, and all with entire 
success. An intelligent German near Houston 
devotes his entire time to this culture and 
wine making, and the demand for his wine 
is greater than he has yet been able to supply. 
He receives large orders every j^ear for his 
cuttings from France, and fills them at a re- 
munerative figure. The French have found 
out the excellence of the grape, and that, even 
when transplanted into France, it resists the 
attack of the destructive 'phylloxera. 

The famous Scuppernong of North Carolina 
does very well in all the eastern and southern 
portions of the State east of the Colorado. It 
is derived from the muscadine or hullace, 
which is native here. Our horticulturists are 
introducing it extensively, and it has not failed 
to respond pleasantly to their efforts. The 
fruit, we think, is hardly so good as it is on its 
"native heath" in North Carolina; still it is 
very sweet and juicy, and makes a good light 
table wine. It would no doubt, from its 
ample supply of saccharine matter, make a 
good brandy. 

The Labruscaus, or the Northern Fox 
grapes, in their multitudinous varieties, have 
not yet established themselves in Texas. Our 
experience and observation are that many, per- 
haps most of them, do finely for awhile ; they 
deliver two or three excellent crops, but then 
they are attacked by the phylloxera, or the 
mildew or rot, and die. We believe that in 
Eastern and Southeru Texas it is useless to 
crow them. In Northern Texas there are many 
who insist that the Concord especially has es- 
tablished itself ; but we think it too early yet 
to claim this. However, if the Northern Fox 
grapes shall do well anywhere in Texas, it will 
be in North Texas and the Panhandle. 

And if it be thus with the Northern Fox 
grapes in Texas, it will probably prove worse 
with the European grapes, or VUis vinefera, 
though there are many who, from these ex- 
periments, express the utmost confidence in 
the Black Hamburgh, the White Hungarian, 
and the Golden Chassehis. Dr. M. Perl, of 
Houston, has a fine vineyard near that city, 
of the best foreign grapes, which i)roduced 



luxuriant crops last summer — 1880, and he 
believes they have come to stay, but we fear 
his experience will be like that of others with 
the Labruscans, and that he will soon aban- 
don the foreign grapes for our "natives to 
the manner born," which are not at all infer 
ior to them in good qualiti(is. We hope it 
may not be so. At all events, the enterprise 
of horticulturists deserves commendation. 
Most of those w^ho have attempted the culture 
of the foreign grapes have already abandoned 
them. If they will succeed anywhere in Tex- 
as, it will probably be in the valley of the 
upper Rio Grande. They succeed perfectly in 
California, and the climate about El Paso is 
much the Stvme as in that State. 

The difliculty with the European, as with 
the Labruscan, with us is the phylloxera. 
This is a small insect like the curculio, but 
much more destructive. It deposits its eggs 
in the fruit of the grape, which then falls to 
the ground. As soon as the grub hatches he 
leaves the decaying grape, and by instinct 
finds the root of the vine and buries himself 
into it, sucking up the vitalizing juices, and 
the vine dies. No successful remedy has 
ever been applied to hir^a yet, although the 
French scientists have done and are still do- 
ing all in their power to circumvent and de- 
stroy him. Our native grapes are not attacked 
by this creature. Not a single instance has 
ever been known of any of our native South 
ern grapes being assailed. The reason is that 
the bark of the roots, and perhaps the trunks 
themselves, contain a sharply acrid juice 
which repels and perhaps kills the phylloxera 
at once„ If he makes the attack he abandons 
it instantly. At least this is the explanation 
given by our horticulturists, who are usually 
practical men of fine intelligence, and no 
doubt it is the true one. 

And here follows an interesting suggestion, 
and we hope it will be well considered by our 
horticulturists. Since the phylloxera does 
not, dare not, and cannot attack our native 
Southern grape-vines, may it not prove en 
tirely practicable to gfow the Northern and 
European grapes by grafting them upon our 
native stocks? Why not? It is easy to graft 
the grape. Let the experiment be tried. It 
may be that in this way we may naturalize in 
our country all the choicest grapes of the 
world. 

We have seen the Herbemont and Black 
Spanish grafted on the wild Mustang, and pro- 
ducing just as luxuriantly as if grown upon 
their own stocks. Major Rowan Green, of 
Columbus, Colorado county, Texas, tried this 
for amusement or experiment, and was aston- 
ished at the success and the ease with which 
it was accomplished. He has many such 
vines growing in his yard in that town, offer- 
ing their luscious fruits every summer at his 
doors and windows. Any one can see this by 
visiting his place. And if this can be done 
with the Herbemont and Black Spanish on the 
Mustang, why may it not be done with the 
Labruscans and the foreign varieties? Indeed. 
Dr. Grant, of the city of Austin, has one such 
instance in his yard. Last spring (1880), for 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



experiment or amusement, he grafted a cutting 
of the Malaga grape upon the wild Mustang, 
and it has grown over a dozen feet the first 
season. Perhaps next season it will bear 
abundantly. Any one can see this who will 
visit Dr. Grant's yard in Austin. 

But whether such experiments may succeed 
or fail, we are richly blessed with native grapes 
in Texas. Perhaps no country is more so; 
and nothing can be more certain that at some 
day Texas will be a great producer of wines. 
We lack nothing to secure this at once, except 
plenty of people skilled in that industry. 

Capt. John Pope, of the U. S. Army, in a 
report to Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, 
in 1854, speaking of the Rio Grande valley 
and the grapes, says : ' ' The most valuable 
feature of the Rio Grande valley is its most 
•wonderful adaptation to the culture of the 
grape. It attains here a flavor and richness 
unknown to any grape I have ever seen in the 
United States, and is produced, when culti- 
vated, in the most profuse abundance. An 
examination of the character and climate of 
this region exhibits a striking resemblance to 
those of the south side of Madeira, and it is 
much to be doubted whether this portion of 
Texas is at all surpassed in the quality of its 
grapes even by that favored island. There 
are comparatively few vineyards in the coun- 
try, but they produce most abundantly a de- 
licious grape, and the wine, although very 
rudely and imperfectly manufactured, and 
drunk in the same year, and probably within 
six months after fermentation, is of very fine 
flavor and of several varieties. I am convinc- 
ed that one of the most important elements of 
the future wealth of this country is to be found 
in its peculiar adaptedness to the manufacture 
of wine, and it needs, but opportunity and 
encouragement to confirm the truth of this 
opinion." 

The grapes which Capt. Pope found so de- 
licious are the Black Spanish and Herbemont. 

The following is translated from an article 
in the San Antonio Free Press, whose editor, 
Mr. Seimmering, is a connoisseur in wines: 

" We would like to ask our farmers and 
gardeners whether they ever saw in their lives 
a failure of crop in grapes suitable to our cli- 
mate ? We know we have frequent failures 
with the peach and apple, and even the water- 
mdon sometimes fails, but we never heard of 
anything of the kind with the grapes. They 
thrive in good and bad years, and every year 
the vines are covered with grapes. But while 
all this is true, the culture of the grape remains 
a secondary work or mere plaything. So far 
as we know it has only been practised by a 
few in good earnest. 1 ne fact cannot be dis- 
puted that the vines grow here on any soil. 
One of our fellow-citizens, Mr. Woldert, who 
lived in San Antonio before the war, but now 
at Tyler, in Smith county, writes us his ex- 
perience in the cultivation of the grape-vine, 
and what he writes is interesting, because his 
experience places it beyond doubt that Texas 
cannot be surpassed in grape culture, and that 
a variety of grapes will grow to perfection on 
every soil in Texas, if they are only properly 



treated. Mr. Woldert is a practical vintner, 
which is attested by the fact that he has sent 
us a dozen bottles of different kinds of wines 
made by him, as a sample of his production. 
If this wine were produced in quantities large 
enough, we should have no further use for 
imported wines, and could we produce so 
much that w^e could export it, this branch of 
industry would be as important to Texas as it 
is to California. Perhaps some of our readers 
will be astonished when we communicate what 
Mr. Woldert has accomplished in grape cul- 
ture and wine making, and how it has paid 
him for his diligence. But, however wonder- 
ful it may appear, it is nevertheless the truth, 
and can be proved by the people of Smith 
county. Mr. Woldert writes: 

" The things I communicate are no castles 
in the air, and if any doubt, they are politely 
requested to come and take a view and con- 
vince themselves. In the year 1860 I planted 
two-year-old Herbemont roots. They are now 
on stocks six to seven inches in diameter, and 
have produced during sixteen years, full crops 
regularly. I never had a failure of crop, and 
never in Europe or anywhere else have I seen 
vines so full of grapes as here. My trellises 
were of uncommon strength, but they broke 
down from the weight of the grape, and 1 had 
to support them with forks. These vines can 
be planted 12 x 13 feet apart, consequently 302 
plants to the acre. Every vine will produce 
at least six gallons of wine, which makes 1,812 
gallons per acre. We will, however, consider 
that this amount cannot be made by everyone, 
and on all soils, and will take off one-third. 
This leaves 1,208 to the acre, which may be 
depended on under the most unfavorable cir- 
cumstances. Is it not to be wondered at that 
this industry has not been commenced long 
before now and practised on a large scale here? 
The only difficulty is the want of experienced 
and skillful immigrants. We see in some of 
our European papers that a ship loaded with 
95,844 gallons of wine, worth $85,920, landed 
lately in Bremen from California; and here 
lie our vast number of acres idle, and on which 
the same may be accomplished here as well as 
there, if we only had the skilful hands to till 
them and make the wine. 

" The varieties of grapes cultivated by Mr. 
Woldert are as loUows: The Scuppernong, 
Herbemont, Catawba, Isabella and Concord. 
From one vine of the Scuppernong, planted 
in 1864, he made last year forty-eight gallons 
of wine. He also makes a very drinkable 
wine out of wild grapes. Consider this wine 
worth only fifty cents per gallon ; here is $600 
per acre, and how much more easy and inter 
esting is a vineyard than a cotton field '" 

I.IYE STOCK. 

Next to the cultivation of the soil, the rear- 
ing of live stock is the most important grand 
division of the industries of the State. This 
is to be expected, of course, from the richness 
and abundance of the native grasses and the 
wide ranges of free pasturage. Her vast 
prairies, aoundant and luxuriant pasturage, 
her springs and streams of clear and sparkling 



30 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



water, and still more her uniform and de- 
lightful climate, all combine to makr 1 exas 
excel all other countries in this important in- 
dustry. "When Die Slate was first pe( pled, 
her prairies were found covered with enorm- 
ous herds of bulfalo (l^ison), antelope, deer, 
and wild horses, which under the intluence 
of favorable natural environment liad increas- 
ed to an astonishins: degree. The tiist set- 
tlers were not slow to take advantage of 
the capabilities of the country in this respect, 
as indicated by nature, and fiom the earliest 
times in Texas, the raising of live stock has 
been one of the chief and most profitable in- 
dustries. 

CATTLE. 

A few years since the horned stock of Tex- 
as was confined to the native breed, and ran 
wild upon the prairies with little more care 
than the trouble of branding the calves. 
Since then a great improvement has taken 
place in the quality of the stock by mixing it 
with the finer grades of imported breeds, and 
this policy is not only found to work a valu- 
able improvement in the stock itself, but adds 
greatly to the already large profits of the in- 
dustry by increasing the quality and price of 
beeves that are now in so great demand in the 
eastern markets, and for the new traffic of ex- 
portation to Europe. 

The rapid increase of population in the 
State and the consequent enhanced value of 
land, have to some extent interfered with the 
operations of the old time "cattle men," 
•who, perhaps without possessing an acre of 
the soil, owned thousands of head of fat 
cattle, and could boast of enormous wealth. 
They have either been compelled of late years 
to limit the increase of their stock b}^ free 
sales, to buy and fence in large tracts of land, 
or to move their stocks farther west. Even 
where the latter alternative has been adopted, 
many have concluded that in the march of 
progress they will again be interfered with, 
and are adopting the plan of leasing land in 
large bodies from the railroad companies for 
a term of years. By this means, at a small 
expenditure of cash annually, they control 
their own ranges, and are not likely to be in- 
terfered with soon. The current price of 
rental of these wild grazing lands is about 
two cents per acre annually, or say $12.80 for 
a section (one mile square). 

It is not deemed worth while to encumber 
this publication with individual instances of 
successful cattle raising in Texas. They 
could be counted by thousands, and some of 
them upon a grand scale, like that of Captain 
Kictiard King, of Santa Gertrudes, about 
thirty-five miles southwest of Corpus Chrisli. 
in Nueces county, who coming to this country 
a poor cabin boy, something over twenty 
years ago, is now the possessor of an enorm 
0U8 estate, consisting partly of sixty thousand 
acres of land under fence, about 50,000 
horned cattle, 10,000 horses, 20,000 sheep, 
8.000 goats, etc., etc. 

The following tabulated statement showing 
the increase from 100 cows, 2 bulls, and 100 



calves, has stood the test of time, and we be- 
lieve will be rather under than over the mark, 
always assuming that the business is managed 
industriously and with good judgment. 
A TABLE 

SHOWING THE INCREASE FROM 100 COMS. 2 BULLS, ANI>' 
M) CALVES, FOR A TKRIOU OF TWELVE YEARS. 













^ 


t \t .un 




o 

O 




an 
> 














2 


100 


— 


H 


H 


^ fe 




100 






1st Year 


147 


3 


117 


50 










2d •' 


204 


5 


163 


57 


50 








3d " 


284 


8 


227 


81 


87 


50 






4tli " 


395 


11 


316 


113 


81 


57 


50 




5th " 


551' 


14 


440 


158 


113 


81 


57 


50 


6th " 


7tt9 


16 


615 


220 


158 


113 


81 


57 


7th ^' 


1,075 


19 


860 


307 


22(1 


158 


113 81 


8ih " 


1,497 


27 


1.197 


430 


307 


220 


158 113 


9th " 


2.0H5 


37 


1,668 


598 


430 


307 


220 158 


10th " 


2,9001 


56 


2.320 


834 


598 


430 


307 22l) 


nth ♦' 


4.083 


78 


3,-.i66 


1,160 


834 


598 


430 307 


12th " 


5,684 


110 


4,349 


1,633 


1,160 


834 


598 430 



Let us examine the above table carefully, 
and mark the result at the end of twelve 
years. The stock would be as follows : 

Milch cows..., 5,684 

Build 110 

Calves 4,349 

Yearlings 1.663 

Two years old . 1,160 

Three years old 834 

Four years old 598 

14,368 

Deduct 20 per cent, for casualties. . . 2,872 

11,496 
Deduct for strays , 1,496 

10,000 
Now supposing that you .should wish to 
settle up the business and realize, mark the 
results, notwithstanding ihe uncommon. de- 
ductions I have made: 

Sale of 50 five-year-old beeves at the end of the 

5th year, at $10 $500 

570 

810 

1,130 

1,580 

2,200 

3,070 

4,300 

" 10,000 head of stock cattle at $5 50,000 

$64,160 
As regards imported cattle of the finer breeds. 
Jerseys, Alderneys, Durhams, etc., there hav<i 
been a varied experience in Texas, the general 
opmion now being that the Durliams thrive 
best. 

G. W. Elliott, of Mountain View, in the San 
Antonio E.vpreM, says of his experience with 
imported cattle: " I arrived here Dec. 8, 1878, 
with sixty-six head of Durham calves, from 
five to seven mouths old I put them at once 
upon my pasture of 1,500 acres, which 1 had 
fenced several months previous, and had al 
lowed no stock upon it. I fed them very 
little — a small amount of wheat bran once a 
day for a coujile of months. On that, with 
the grass in the pasture, they went Ihrougii 
tlie winter in very good condition; the only 
trouble was the Spanish fever, which they alJ 



57 


6th 


81 


7th 


113 


8th 


158 " 


9th 


220 


10th 


307 " 


11th 


430 


12ih 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



31 



bad sooner or later. I lost only six of the 
heifers out of fifty-seven, whilst I lost eight 
males out of nineteen head with that disease. 
I can only account for the discrepancy in 
number of deaths per sex in one way. The 
heifers are frequently thrown in contact with 
Texas cattle during the winter, by their being- 
driven through the pasture the heifers occu- 
pied, while tiie males were isolated, being in a 
pasture to themselves. By the first of March 
all the heifers had gone through the disease, 
but none of the males had been attacked. In 
March I changed my males, when they were 
brought in contact with Texas stock, and in a 
-short time all were sick, and I lost eight in a 
few days. Now, as to the causes of death 
among the Durham, Alderney, Jersey, or any 
other breed that are brought into this country, 
I feel confident, if there was no Spanish or 
native cattle here, that we would have but a 
very small death-rate from acclimation. I 
bred in June and July, 1879, twenty of my 
yearling heifers. Breeding them to the males 
that 1 brought with me, which were only year- 
olds past, the following spring I had twenty 
calves come from those heifers, and every one 
of them had disease at from fifteen to eighteen 
days old. I lost five of the calves with it. 
But I concluded to try it another season. So 
I bred twenty again — some that had calves, 
and some that had not been bred before. This 
spring they all brought calves that were as 
healthy and grew off as finely as I ever saw 
them do anywhere, not one of them showing 
any sign of trouble of any kind. They are 
about six months old now. and I believe I 
can show as good a lot of calves as you can 
find in any cattle growing country from the 
yearr-old cows, and with less expense than can 
be found any wnere outside of Texas. I would, 
therefore, advise those bringing stock from 
other parts to this country, not to breed them 
the first year. My cattle have not been housed 
a day since I came — have been at liberty m my 
pastures ever since here, and I find I have seen 
they have grown and lived upon the native 
,grasses here just as well as in Missouri. I 
liave fed them all $50 worth of feed since I 
<.*ame. l^ast winter they went through the 
winter on grass in the pasture alone, and were 
in excellent condition this spring. I have lost 
but one in two years, and that was a calf of 
two months which died with blackleg. My 
.stock are all Durham. I wean the calves at 
.six months old, and continue to milk the cows 
until a few weeks before calving again." 

As showing the cost and profit of keeping 
<3attle in Texas, the Henrietta Journal saya: 
"The cost of keeping cattle is about $1.50 
per head, or $1,500 per thou.sand. Four men, 
witk twelve to sixteen horses, will tend a herd 
of 1,500. The profits are as follows; Beeves 
per head, cost $15; running expenses, $1.50; 
sell at $22, with a profit of 32 per cent. Profit 
on cov,^s costing $13.50 per head, cost of keep- 
ing. $1.50 — $15, Increase of caives, 75 per 
cent. ; worth $5 per head. Net profit 33 per 
cent. On a mixed herd the beeves sold will 
pay expenses, and the increase v/ill double it- 
self in three years. A di^-count is made on a 



herd of 10 per cent, for losses. 1 he profit on 
a mixed herd is about 20 per cent. It says 
there is a total of cattle in the Panhandle 
country of about 129,000 head, and it is fair to 
calculate that the increase this 3'ear from the 
present herds will average not less than 50 
per cent, of the entire number. This will 
give 50,000 calves; the number that will start 
this season from the Texas drive will be about 
30,000 head, and from Colorado 20,000 head. 
This will leave in the Panhandle for next 
year's roundups, about 208,000 head, and yet 
this does not begin to fill up the country, as 
it is estimated that it will hold about a million 
head. The present average prices for mixed 
herds per head are: Texas stock, $13.50; do- 
mestic stock, $15; beeves alone, $22."' 

But it is needless to enlarge upon this head. 
Texas and cattle raising, in the estimation of 
the outside world, are almost synonymous 
terms. There can be no failure, with ordin- 
ary intelligence and industry, to the man who 
has an inclination for the pursuit of this occu- 
pation, and who will exercise ordinary judg 
ment in the choice of a location. Horace 
Greeley stated a literal truth when he said, 
"It costs no more to raise a four-year-old 
beef in Texas than it does a Jien in Massa- 
chusetts." 

SHEEP AND WOOL. 

Next to cattle raising in value and impor- 
tance in Texas, comes the w^ool-growing inter- 
est. The growth of this industry in the last 
decade, but more especially in the last five 
years, has been extraordinary, and it is yet in 
its infancy. In 1860 the United States census 
showed Texas to contain 753,363 sheep. Ten 
years later, in 1870, only 714,351, showing an 
actual decrease, which was no doubt owing to 
the war which raged for four years of that 
period, and the unsettled state of affairs for 
several years succeeding its cessation. 

About 1870, however, commenced a re- 
vival in wool growing. Until now Texas 
stands second on the ILst of wool-producing 
States, being only outstripped by California. 

The Boston Commercial Bulletin (an excel- 
lent authority) of recent date, ^ays: "The 
United States census of 1880 will give statis- 
tics of the number of shef^p in the whole 
country, but will afford means of comparison 
only with the same enumeration ten years 
ago; special returns to the Bulletin give the 
number of sheep in twelve States In 1879, 
compared with the previous year aci follows: 



Statks. 


1879. 

4,267.261 

4„509,840 

1,182.676 

1,772,312 

846.101 

101,166 

91)6.849 

422, U2l) 

194, .176 

194.9.59 

;W 1.752 

582.4(iS 

59,331 


1878. 


Oliio 


3,909.604 

3.688.702 

1.060,.=Sb« 

1,670,790 

89:10i6 

189.907 

916.771 

410,.5.51 

186.456 

131,787 

288,2-.'8 

525,613 

• .54,928 


Texas 


Wisconsin 


Illinois 


Indiana 

West Virginia 

Miniiet^ota •... .... 




Iowa , 


Maasachusetts . 




Totnl 

Tncreasi; . . 


15,344.311 
1.417.369 


13,926,942 



33 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



The total increase in the twelve States men- 
tioned (exclusive of Texas) will be seen to be 
596.281. and in Texas alone 821,138. 

These figures indicate the extraordinary 
growth of "the industry in the State. And 
yet the vast area of Texas, specially adapted 
to sheep raising, has hardly been touched, 
nnd its expansion and rapid growth is not 
likely to be checked within the next fifty 
years. 

In treating this important subject, we can 
hardly do better than to use the facts collected 
by Mr. Joh» L. Hayes, secretary of the Na- 
tional association of wool manufacturers, in 
his valuable pamphlet entitled "Sheep Hus- 
bandry in the South," published in 1878: — 

The sheep husbandry of this State is so 
distinct in its character, from that pursued or 
feasible in the older States of the South, and 
is of such high importance, that it demands a 
separate consideration. The estimated num- 
ber of sheep in this State, in January, 1878, 
was 3,674.700. It ranks at present as the 
third wool-producing State in the Union, 
altliougli having but about a hundred thousand 
head less than Oliio, which has 3,788,000, and 
about half the number of California, which 
has 6,561,000 head. 

In its adaptation for sheep husbandry on a 
large ftcale, Texas possesses decided advan- 
tages over our other Southern States, en- 
ormous ones over the Northern and Eastern 
States, and many over California and the 
trans-Missouri regions. The cheapness of 
land; its natural fertility; its genial climate 
and exemption from tempestuous weather, 
except in the northers, wJoose severity is gener 
ally much exaggerated; the absence of seasons 
of continuous drouth, owing to the influence 
of the Gulf before referred to ; the possession 
of permanent winter grasses, making the pas- 
turage perennial — are advantages which will 
make Texas one of the great wool-producing 
countries of the world. Dr. Randall said, in 
1859, of regions of Texas which he had thor- 
oughly studied : 

"I do not entertain a particle of doubt that 
wool can be raised more cheaply in those 
regions than in any other portion of the globe, 
where good government prevails to make life 
tolerable and secure, and such property as 
sheep, safe from frequent and extensive de- 
predations. In no such portion are lands 
furnishing perennial pasturage, or the use of 
such lands, so cheap. In none are general 
(iircumstances more favorable, the accidental 
and occasional disadvantages so few." 

Upon its annexation to the United States, in 
1845, Texas retained, as the most valuable, 
though then little appreciated relic of the 
former Mexican proprietors, scattered here 
and there, flocks of the so-called "native" 
sheep of Mexico, of which large flocks still 
abound in that country, and which still fur- 
nishes an easy .supply of all that are needed. 
This race, greatly deteriorated by neglect, 
small in size, and bearing about two j)ounds 
of coarse wool, is supposed by many to be de- 
generated merinos. It is now well established 
that they are descendants from the Chouvro 



race of Spain, even at present distributed in 
all parts of that kingdom — a race distmguished 
for its robust temperament, the facility with 
which it is nourished, and its resistance to 
hunger and tempestuous seasons. When the 
animals are properly fed and bred, they ma}- 
be made to produce a long and very white, 
though coarse wool, well adapted for carpets. 
This is the stock which was the orginal foun- 
dation of the present Texas flocks. " 

We regret that, with all our efforts, we 
have been unable to obtain condensed, origi- 
nal statements in regard to the sheep husband- 
ry of Texas, like those so kindly furnished 
us by Mr. Peters and Colonel Watts in rela- 
tion to Georgia and South Carolina. In their 
absence, we must content ourselves with 
giving extracts from the Texas correspondents 
with the Department of Agriculture. Al- 
though fragmentary in their character, they 
will perhaps present a more exact picture of 
the general sheep husbandry of the State than 
could be given by more elaborate and better 
arranged statements. 

We give the extracts at hazard, and with- 
out reference to the geographical position of 
the counties, or their bearing upon any par- 
ticular question in sheep husbandry. In or- 
der to preserve tne piquancy of the state- 
ments, the exact language of the correspon- 
dents is given in all cases. The correspon- 
aents, it will be remembered, are selected by 
the department from the most intelligent agri- 
culturists residing in the several counties. 

A correspondent from Palo Pinto county 
writes : 

"A sheep-raiser for several years says: ' Say 
for 1,000 head, it will cost $300 for herding; 
extra help in lambing time, $30; salt, $15; 
cost of shearing, $50; feed during winter, 
$200. W^e imagine the Georgia Bureau of 
Agriculture knows but little about large herds 
of sheep, as they are grown on prairie grass. 
They are accustomed to herds of from ten to 
one hundred. Such flocks are not necessary 
to be herded, and yield a fine profit. If we 
make it a specialty, and put 500 to 1.000 in a 
herd, which is common here, they will not 
pay so well. The figures made on paper will 
show them to pay belter than anything else. 
But a very little experience show the figures 
quite an error. Small herds here will pay 
very well, and much better than large, when 
they are so large as to require a herder." 

Navarro County. — ' I have been engaged," 
says the correspondent, " in sheep-raising for 
fourteen years. In this and all the old settled 
prairie counties, 300 to 400 sheep do well. 
100 per cent, gross profit is a fair statement. 
The profit diminishes 10 per cent, per 100 
head, as you go over 100. My flock has 
ranged from 300 to 1,000. I put up annually 
100 pounds of prairie hay and one bushel of 
cotton seed to the sheep, and have good shel- 
ter provided." 

Goliad County. — This correspondent, Hon. 
Prior Lea, the writer has the pleasure of 
knowing personally to be entitled to great 
confidence. "Cost and profit of growing 
wool may be estimated in two ways. Credit- 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



33 



ing increase of sheep as equal to all cost, the 
wool would be net profit; and this, at least, 
is claimed by many persons. Without credit- 
ing increase for more than enough to main 
lain the Hock equal to its primitive condition, 
a practical estimate for cost, considering every 
kind of item, might be from 10 to 12 cents per 
pound of unAvashed wool, averaging 17 cents 
in market. This latter mode gives broad 
margin for contingencies. " 

Bandera County. — " Cost of keeping sheep, 
about 25 cents per head; profit, 80 cents to 
$1, exclusive of increase-" 

Another, same county. — "One flock of 800 
cost, for the shepherd and salt, $275; net 
profit including wool and increase, 31 per 
cent." 

Aransas County. — " Cost of keep, 10 per 
cent. ; profit, 50 to 60 per cent, on capital. 
Mr. P's flock averages 50 per cent, of its total 
value as profit. About 100,000 sheep in the 
county, mostly improved merinos." 

Burnet County. — "One-half in farms under 
cultivation; all the rest a complete pasture. I 
Sheep-raisers say this is the best county they 
ever saw." 

CaUahan County.— "F\ock of 2,000. Twen- 
ty cents per head cost. Profit by w^ool, 40 
cents per head." 

Fort Bend County.— " 250,000 sheep could 
be raised in this county. One-quarter in cul- 
tivation. All the rest adapted for sheep pas- 
ture, yet no sheep w^orth mentioning: all cattle 
and cotton. At close of war, sheep-raising 
began to decline, owing to depreciation of 
price of wool. A reaction has now taken 
place: extensive pastures are now being en- 
closed; improved breeds are introduced." 

Kendall Couniy.—"M.r. B. has 1,000 head 
of sheep. Shears 5,000 pounds 'of wool; at 
28 cents, $1,400; cost of keep, $325; profit. 
$1,075." 

Another ; same county. — " A successful 
sheep-raiser says: 'I commenced with 220 
ewes, three years ago, and have sold suflicient 
of the flock to make an increase of 100 per 
cent, per year average ; and the wool has av- 
eraged for that time from 75 cents to $1 an- 
nually." 

Lamm County.— "Mr. S. B. M. has a flock 
of 1,500 head, let out to a herder on shares; 
and, therefore, furnishes a pretty fair sample 
as to profits. He gives the herder one-qnarter 
of the wool and one-quarter of the annual in- 
crease, that is, the actual increase. He fur- 
nishes the salt, sheep dip, etc. The herder 
pays all other expenses, except shearing; and 
pays one quarter of this amount. This makes 
the yifeld to the owner— 

For wool j8<X) 00 

1 be increase of the flock will average 
800 head; which, at $1.50 per lamb, 
in spring, makes lambs Sl.iJOO 00 

Deduct from this SI, -WO, 34 to herder, 300 00 

which leaves 



Irora this, tlie leading wool-producing county 
in the State. 

i One correspondent says: "Sheep husbandry 
is the leading industry;^ and a higher degree 
of intelligence is devoted to it than to any 

, other enterprise in the county." 

! Another says: " I would estimate the cost 

'' of keep and profits on the sheep (Spanish 
merino) as follows: 

1 f^^o-vear-old ewe cost $5.00. 
Ur. 

To interest, one year at 12 per cent $0 60 

" cost of feed, lierding, salt, etc 1 00 

' ' Buck service 40 

''Insurance 10 

" Shrinkage in value 70 



Total . 



82 80 



By 5J^ lbs. of wool, at 20 cents $1 lO 

'• 75 per cent, of lambs, at $4.00 3 00 

Total $-1 10 

Less cost of keep 2.80 



Per cent, of profit, 25. 



$1 30 



900 00 



Leaving a balance as net profit, on one 

flock, of ... $1700 00 

or about $1.13 per head on the entire flock.'"'' 

Jfueces County.— There are several reports 



"My own flock, now numbering 1,700, 
started 460 in 1873 (merinos and C'otswold 
grade), has paid above per cent, of profit, or 
more." 

^ Another careful correspondent from the 
county of Nueces says: "Rams have been im- 
ported in large numbers. Improvement is al 
ready far advanced. Flocks are sheltered 
from Nov. 15th to Feb. 1st, by selecting their 
range and night camp on the south side of 
some creek or prairie timber. There is no 
foot-rot. Semi-annual lambing is generally 
adopted in this county ; the Februaiy or spring 
crop being always the most preferable. One 
set of ewes, lamb in the spring, and another 
set in the fall. Those who shear the best and 
most desirable clips of wool handle their sheep 
<n moderately large flocks of 1,000 to 1,200 
liead. Provision is only made for select sheep 
— sucn as rams. Average weight of fleece, 
live pounds. Average cost of keeping, 25 to 
^8 cents. Profit, 72 to 75 cents. Where dip- 
ping has to be added, the general expenses 
will be 3 to 4 cents per head. Good tobacco, 
liberally used, invariably cures the scab; all 
other preparations have failed in this county. 
Profits on wool only given, as profits from in- 
crease are rarely turned into cash. Ewe 
lambs of high grade sell readily for $2.50 to 
$4.00 per head. The cost of keeping, where 
the shepherd cares for only 1,000 sheep, is 
the cost given; where he cares for 1,500 to 
2,000, as many do the year round, the real 
cost is proportiouably less. " 

The number of sheep in this county, ac- 
cording to the returns of assessors, is 656,000; 
and the remarkable fact is presented to us, 
that very nearly the most southerly county of 
the whole United States is the banner sheep 
county of the Union. The adjoining county, 
Starr, has 184,000 sheep. And these two 
counties have more sheep than the four States 
of the South— Georgia, South Carolina, Flor- 
ida, and Louisiana together; or the conjoined 
States of the North— New Hampshire, Ver 



34 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



mont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. 

One of our own correspondents, certified to 
as one of the oldest and best citizens of Texas, 
writes us as follows: 

"Waco, NicLellan Co., Texas, Jan. 12, 18'/8. 

"Sir: — I have been directly or iudirectly 
interested in the wool-growing, in this state aud 
section, for many 3-ears. The country is rolling 
prairie land; the soil, black-waxy, and, in sec- 
tions, quite sandy, and an excellent grazing 
country. The natural grasses are the sedge and 
mesquite; of the latter, three varieties; the best, 
the bearded variety. My flocks have been 
French and Spanish merinos, mixed; the 
average product of fleece being six pounds, at 
an average valuation, for five years, of 25 cts. 
per pound. This can be produced under 
favorable circumstances for sixteen cents net 
cost to the shepherd; but he should have not 
less than the ten cents profit added, to make 
a paying investment. If there is no change 
in our duties, I am confident that there is no 
more promising industry in the country than 
wool-growing; but, if we are to have reduced 
duties, or free wools, the occupation will have 
to be abandoned. 

"There is no objection to sheep from any 
.section of the North or West, if free from 
-disease. For the ordinary wools I would 
prefer the merino; for mutton or combing 
wools, a cross of the Cotswold with pure 
blood merinos. The country is uniformly 
liealthy for sheep here. In three months of 
the winter, the sheep should have some feed; 
say one-third of their consumption. I would 
say that sixty-five cents a head would cover 
€very possible contingency or cost in sheep 
husbandry, per annum, in this section. As 
I have said, if the farmers are to keep the 
protection they now have against the pro- 
r'ucers of foreign wools, there is no more 
profitable industry that any one who will put 
his attention to the business can be engaged in. 
"Yours truly, "W. R. Kellum. 

Another of our own correspondents writes 
as follows : 

"Houston, Texas, Jan. 9, 1878. 

Dear Sir: — I have had long experience ii) 
sheep husbandry in the San Joaquin and SantM 
Barbara country, and also in Los Angeles, 
•California, I know well Colonel Holiister, 
Mr. Dibbles, of California, and other promi- 
nent wool growers there, I was also for a 
time in Utah; also, in Western Texas, which 
1 regard as the best country for the industry 
with which I am acquainted, if life and proper- 
ty were only secure against Mexican depreda 
tions. The climate, for man and beast, is 
unrivalled; the feed, rich and unfailing all 
the year round. No country I know of could 
so well sustain the large flocks which, from 
various causes, are being broken up in Cali- 
fornia. 

" In a parall(?l drawn north from Laredo to 
the Indian Territory, there is the best location 
foi- the industry, in iny judgment, in the 

* Tlicre i8 no longer any complaint on this score. 
l''iock.s on the Mexican border are now an safe as they 
«re anywhere. The Mexican and Indian troubles are 
■'dead issues."— Ed. 



country. But, until L'ncle Sam will protect 
us there, the life of the shepherd and his flocks 
are in constant jeopardy from tlie Mexicans.* 
These thieves and marauders operate in a re- 
gularly systematic way; being fitted out and 
encoui'aged by the wealthy Mexicans living 
on or near the border, who for years have 
been at the bottom of all the border troubles, 
from their desire for annexation to this coun- 
try. Their purpose is constantly to provoke 
a war, believing the result will be annexation, 
when they will then have a stable govern- 
ment, which they know they never will have 
under any Mexican leader. . . 

"There are other very fine fields for this in- 
dustry near Corpus Christi, San Antonio, 
north and south of Dallas; but the finest sec- 
tion in this country, in my judgment, must re- 
main idle, unless, as I have said, the govern- 
ment will give protection. 

"S. W. Pipkin." 

Statements of Mr. Shaeffer. — After the abov^ 
notes had been put in press, the writer en- 
joyed the privilege of several personal inter- 
views at Washington with Mr. ¥. W. Shaeffer, 
of San Diago, Duval county, Texas, commend- 
ed by members of the delegation in Congress 
from Texas, as the highest authority on sheep- 
growi^jg in that State. The following notes 
which this gentleman permitted us to take at 
these interviews, will serve to give a much 
more exact idea of the present condition and 
resources for sheep husbandry in Texas, than 
the notes before given. 

Our informant, born in Ohio, was early in 
life engaged in mercantile persuits in the city 
of New York. Finding them uncongenial, 
he embarked in sheep husbandry in Texas, a- 
bout the year 1857, settling in the higher re- 
gion of the State, north of San Antonio. The 
foundation of his flocks, which now number 
15,000 head, was sheop purchased before the 
war from a brother of General Beiurciiard, 
supplemented since the war by 1,500 breeding- 
ewes, obtained from the estates of G. W. Ken- 
dall, identified with the introduction of im- 
proved sheep husbandry in Texas 

Finding the climate in the high region 
where he was first established not as mild as 
he desired, he purchased lands in the more 
southerly regions of the Stale, about fifty 
miles from Corpus Christi, in Nueces county, 
obtaining gradually about 80,000 acres; the 
whole of this great tract being enclosed in one 
vast pasture by a wire fence, which cost up- 
wards of $ 6,000. Here he found the climate 
so mild that the sheep thrive absolutely with- 
out shelter. He regards it as necessary only 
to keep the sheep fat and in good condition. 
to enable them to r(!sist without inconvenience 
the cold wind and rain of that climate. Even 
the shepherds have no shelter, except such as 
they may make with iheir blankets; ;tnd no 
moans of wa lining themselves, but a fire on 
the open ground. Th(\v sufl:'er no inconveni- 
ence, however, fron^ this exposure, jmuI are al- 
ways on hand to take care of their sl.eep. 

The sheei') in this district are. divided into 
single flocks of from 1, lOOto l,30('in number; 



EXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



35 



pounds to the bushel, instead of 82. Througa 
its introduction the price of oats has been re- 
duced from about 70 or 75 cents to 22 cents 
It is sown in November, and fed during the 
winter, which increases the crop of grain. 
This variety would be admirably adapted a 
the Georgia pine lands for a winter forage for 
sheep. 

Although the original slock upon which Mr. 
Shaeffer's flocks w-ere engrafted was principal 
ly the native Mexican sheep, improved b}' 
merino bucks, the Mexican blood has been so 
completely eradicated as to show no trace of 
its exi.'^tence. The native Mexicans would 
weigh scarcely more than fiom fifty to fifty 
five j>ounds, gross weight, and produce fleeces 
of poor wool, weigliTiig about four pounds. 
The improved sheep of Mr. Shaeffer, average 
for the whole flock seven pounds of ini washed 
fine wool. His wethers — or "muttons," to 
adopt the Texas term — will weigh, at four 
years old, one hundred pounds, gross weight. 
These sheep, whicii are of the best improved 
American merino stock, make excellent mut- 
ton. The mutton fed upon the mesquite grass 
never has any of the rankuess or muttony flavor 
peciiliar to those sheep at the North. A great 
number are now sent from Nueces and other 
counties in Texas to St. Louis and Chicago, 
where they bring good prices. They reach 
these markets before the Western sheep are 
sheared and ready for the butcher; and they 
form an important source of supply for these 
markets in the spring, coming in like the 
Southern vegetables to our Northern markets. 
A notice has recently been published of tlie 
loading of ten double-decked cars carrying 
160 animals each, with sheep, at San Antonio, 
destined for the Chicago market, at a distance 
of 1,500 miles. One flock of three-year old 
wethers was sold by Mr. Shaeffer for $3 a 
head, to a party who pastured them for two 
years m Texas, receiving their wool for this 
iperiod; and who sent them to market in New 
Orleans, at five years old, where their fatness 
and the excellence of their meat was the sub- 
ject of general comment. Mr. Webster used 
Although the grass may be apparently diy j often to say, at his dinner table, that he never 
during a drouth, after a rain it becomes; per -i knew the secret of maknig ijood mutton until 



usually about 1,100, this being about the num 
ber which can be advantageously kept togeth- 
er under the care of one shepherd. The ew es, 
with their lambs, are kept separate from the 
dry ewes and the wethers — or mvttons as they 
are generally called. A thousand or eleven 
hundred sheep will "herd" or keep nearly to- 
gether* within a space which the shepherd 
can easily move around. When driven out on 
the range from the camping-ground, they are 
kept constantly moving for a mile or two ; the 
shepherd continually moving around the flock, 
which is guided by his voice. They snatch their 
bites of grass as they go slowly along. They re- 
turn in the sam'e way, slowly feeding, to the 
camping ground, generally selected on the 
southerly side of some creek, or under the 
shelter of the prairie-timber. In rainy or cold 
weather the sheep travel much more briskly 
than in warm. In very hot, dry weather, 
they often- will not feed by d'ty, making up 
for it by feeding late in the night Thorough- 
bred shepherd dogs have been hired, but have 
been found useless, except to relieve lazy 
^shepherds, who can do the necessary guiding- 
much better than the dog. The flocks, how- 
ever, are usually attended by cur dpgs, which 
are useful for frightening away wild animals. 
These curs, having been suckled when young 
upon goats, continue to attach themselves to 
the flock. The shepherd dogs were discard- 
ed, because it was found that, when they 
drove the sheep, they caused them to huddle 
together, thus making a great loss of feeding 
time. It is of the first importance to keep the 
animal fat. Its fat condition not only makes 
t'je fibre strong, but enables the sheep to re- 
sist the storms and cold. If sheep are fat, 
they are also better able to endure occasional 
drouths. All the sustenance in the country 
in question is supplied by the natural pastur- 
age, which consists of different varieties of 
the mesquite grass. A great superiority of 
'chesi' grasses over the annual grasses of Cali- 
fornia consists in their being perennial, and 
having long and stout roots, which cannot be 
pulled up by the sheep, nor trodden down. 



fectly green in a week or ten days. The ram; 
it may be observed, except when they range 
with the ewes, are confined in enclosen pas- 
tures. They receive in winter extra forage; 
either cotton-seed (which is considered more 
nourishing than grain), or, more generally, 
oats. A new variety of oats has recently been 
grown in Texas, called the "Anti-rust." This 
variety has been known to produce as high as 
one hundred bushels to the acre, weighing 37 

* Mr. Shaeffer gives a satisfactory rea.son for the fact, 
often stated without explanation, that the English races 



he visited England, where he found that it 
was age, the best mutton being five years old. 
While the sheep increase but "little In weight 
after the third year, the meat constantly in\- 
proves in quality. It may be readily seen 
how easy it is to' obtain good mutton where 
the food' costs absolutely nothing, and almost 
the only cost of keeping the sheep till full 
maturity, is the interest of the capital, whil<> 
the sheep are all the time producing tlierr 
semi-annual returns of wool. 

'The flocks in this country are kept up by 



of sheep, the Cotswolds, Leicesters, etc., cannot be kept ! ^he constant purchase of regenerators. Thes« 
111 large docks. The reason he gives is, that the Cots- ., r-ii';f'd in New York Vermoni 

vvold-^vil! not 'herd" or keep together, like the merinos. ^^'*^. "^5^? .'^'^"^^ ^iH^^,^,^" ^^^^ ^",' 2 V !V 



1 toget 
While feeding, they invariably scatter over a wide do 
main. A Cotswold, if tired, will lie down, and cannot 
he driven up by the shepherd; and. when it recovers, is 
liMble to wander off and join another flock. Mr. Shaef- 
fer thinks that the Colswold blood should never be in- 
troduced into large flocks of merino sheep. V^'ithout 
greater care in breeding than the ordinary flocking-mas- 



and Ohio, by .skilled breeders, who find thi.s 
much more profitable than growing large 
numbers of sheep for wool or muttoh. A 
very large number of Northern rams are soltt 
in Texas. Mr. Shaeffer has himself purcha>- 
ter can exercise, they will make the wool of the flocks | ^1^ ^'l^ ^^O at the North, nj^ny of them from 
uneven, and ultimately ruin them. 1 I>i". Kandall. I here are at piesent five hiai- 



36 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



dred rams in Corpus Cbristi, all which will be 
sold at prices ranging from $30 to $50, aiul 
very choice animals for $100. The Texas 
sheep husbandry is thus the means of keeping 
up the most profitable branch of sheep culture 
at the North— a branch which may be carried 
on upon the highest-priced lands. The high- 
priced rams are kept in Texas two or three 
years, and sold at a less price to persons com- 
mencing the sheep business with but little 
capital. 

"It had been the custom for the Texan 
flock-masters to sell the high-bred rams pro- 
duced from their own flocks only at the high 
prices demanded by the Northern breeders. 
Mr. Shaeffer early saw that he could benefit 
his country better, and do as well for himself, 
by changing this system. He found that the 
young men of his country going into the sheep 
"business could not pay these high prices and 
make a living. He therefore reduced the 
prices of the high-bred rams which he had 
raised in Texas to from five to ten dollars, and 
sold a great many more by so doing. This 
had the effect of greatly extending the im- 
provement of the flocks in the country. An- 
other step taken by him w^as important for the 
development of the country in the direction 
of sheep-growing. Mr. Shaeffer found that 
contests were constantly occurring between 
the cattle-herders and the shepherds. He 
therefore began gradually to purchase all the 
lands he required; his example was follov/ed 
l)y others; and, at present, the greater part of 
the land in the sheep-region is held in freehold 
by the respective flock-masters. 

" There has now been so long and extensive 
an experience in this country as to reduce the 
methods of the peculiar pastoral sheep-bus- 
bandry to a well-established system, wiiicli is 
so simple that it may be easily learned by any 
intelligent person. The plant required for the 
business, except the first stock of ewes and 
rams, is exceedingly small. No buildings are 
required, if we except the covered platform 
for shearing. A rude camp is all that is neces- 
sary for the flock-master, and a wagon with a 
pair of horses for his supplies; of course he 
will have a saddle horse. The well-arranged 
ranche- is an alter luxury, to be earned by the 
profits of the enterprise. The aim is to have 
flocks of at least 1,000 or 1,100 head, for each 
of v.'hich one shepherd — invariably a native 
Mexican, called a pastore — is required. It is 
desirable that the proprietor should have at 
least three flocks of this number. The sepa- 
rate flocks, each with its shepherd, are so lo- 
cated that they can be brought at night to a 
central camp, where the bamerro, or sheep- 
overseer, also a native Mexican, is established. 
This overseer is necessary, in all cases, to re- 
lieve the shepherds in case of accident, and to 
cook their rations. The haccierros, as a class, 
are remarkable for their fidelity. The impedi- 
menta of the camp, if they may be called by 
this name, consi.st only of tlie rudest cooking- 
utensils, and tiie stores of provisions, no shel- 
Icr being required, and the bed of the shep- 
licrd being a sheepskin. The food or rations 
of the shepherd are corn for tortillas, or some- 



times, flour, coffee and fresh meat, no pork or 
bacon being used. The fresh meat is almost 
invariably "supplied by goats, which are pas- 
tured with the sheep for this purpose. They 
cost about a dollar a head. Their flesh is ex- 
cellent, and preferred by the Mexicans to any 
other. The quantity of goat's meat which the 
pastore will consume is enormous; the con- 
sumption being about one goat a week to the 
shepherd. 

"The shearing seasons are the busiest times 
for the Texan flock-master, not only on ac- 
count of the number of extra hands to be over- 
looked, but because upon the care exercised 
at these periods in culling, depends the future 
character of the flocks; and the tying up of 
the wool nicely is important for its sale. The 
shearings take place twice a year. The spring 
shearing commences about April 15th, and the 
fall shearing about September 15th. The 
shearings continue from three to four wrecks, 
according to the weather. The practice of two 
shearings a year has been adopted, from the 
experience that it is most advantageous for 
the warm climate of Texas. It has been a 
mooted question, whether there is more profit 
in shearing twice a year than once. By shear- 
ing twice, the wool, of course, is shorter; is 
fitted for only one purpose — that of clothing, 
and brings a less price per pound. The 
high prices of wools for combing purposes, 
for which many of the improved v/ools of 
Texas, if suffered to grow to their full length, 
are well adapted, is lost ; and there is the ad- 
ditional expense of the extra shearing. But, 
on the other hand, the sheep sheared twice a 
year are healthier, and keep fatter; and the 
shearing checks the scab, if there is any ten- 
dency to this disease. The flock-master gets 
the money for his wool twice a year, instead 
of once; an important consideration where the 
least rate of interest is one per cent, a month. 
The double shearing is especially advantage- 
ous to the lambs. By giving them their first 
shearing in August, to be repeated in the next 
spring, their health, and grow^th are greatly 
promoted, and, consequently, the general in- 
crease of the flock. Mr. Shaeffer believes it 
would be advantageous to shear the Za?«i« twice, 
even at the North. Seeing the lambs in the 
flock of an eminent breeder in Missouri fail- 
ing, Mr. Schaeffer recommended immediate 
shearing. The advice was followed and all 
were saved ; one of these lambs, (a ram) when 
grown, was afterwards sold for $150. 

The shearing in Texas is all performed by 
Mexicans, from both sides of the river Rio 
Grande; many coming in, for this purpose, 
even from as far as Monterey. They shear 
by the head ; the usual price being about $3.50 
per hundred for fine sheep. The shearers 
average about thirty head a day. The shear- 
ing is performed on a floor or platform, espe- 
cially constructed for this purpose. The most 
careful flock-masters have this floor protected 
by a roof. The barn floors of the North, it must 
be remembered, are not known in Texas. 
In shearing, the Mexicans tie down the sheep 
upon the floor, usually about ten at a time. 
This time the flock-master improves for ex- 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



amining iiis sheep and the character of their 
tleeces. He selects those which are to be 
culled out on account of age or defects of 
fleece, or those which are to be preserved for 
special uses in breeding; makes the proper 
marks upon the animals, duly entering them 
\ipon his sheep-book. The wool from the 
spring shearing is tied up in fleeces; the fall 
shearing, being light, is put in sacks without 
being tied. The packing the wool in sacks, 
although it cannot be dispensed with, is con- 
sidered disadvantageous to the grower of the 
wools, as wool from inferior fleeces, or an 
inferior part of the body, is liable to be mixed 
with better wool, and to prejudice the whole 
lot to the buyer. It is believed that a profit- 
able enterprise, and one very advantageous to 
the Texan growers, would be the establish- 
ment in that country of extensive wool -scour- 
ing establishments, like those in Belgium and 
France, ' The facility of obtaining scoured 
wool would be advantageous to manufacturers 
with small capital and establishments, and in 
saving of freight. The sheep in Texas, it 
must be observed, are never washed. The 
water is calcareous; and perhaps contains iron, 
because it makes the wool black. 

Even with the rich pastures of Texas, it is 
deemed desirable to have at least two acres to 
every sheep. It is of the first importance 
that the range should not be overstocked. A 
much larger range is required than in regular, 
enclosed pastures, over which the sheep 
scatter as soon as they are driven to them, while 
in the open range, under the care of the 
herder, much of the grass is trodden down by 
the sheep passing from one point to another 
in compact flocks, from their sleeping grounds. 
The proportion of bucks required for the 
ewes is larger than in the North, as the bucks 
run with the ewes on the range about five 
weeks. Three bucks are required for every 
hundred ewes. The main lambing takes 
place from February 20th to April 1st. It is 
an interesting observation in regard to lamb- 
ing, that it is attended with much less danger 
and difliculty where the sheep live in the 
natural state of wild animals, than under a 
more artificial system. This applies also to 
the general health of the animals. During the 
lambing season, in the evening or next morn- 
ing, after the flock of ewes, with the lambs 
dropped during the day — say from fifty to 
one hundred — are driven into the camping- 
ground, the ewes with the newly dropped 
lambs are separated from the flock, and 
suffered to rest until the middle of the day, 
near the camping-ground. The next day they 
are moved to another camp-ground, to give 
place to those which come on that day; the 
last comers to join those which came on the 
previous day. This continues until a flock 
of about 500 ewes and 500 lambs is made up, 
which is kept separate. It is not safe to 
calculate, one year with another, that the 
number of lambs raised will be more than 
eighty per cent, of the ewes. 

All the ewes which lose their lambs from 
any cause are turned in with bucks, by the 
first of June, to lamb in November. 



j Our informant has but little faith in esti" 

I mates of profits, as the circumstances vary so 

I much in the situation of the establishment, 

I and the personal and economical habits of 

the flock-master. He has consented, however, 

to make a statement of the necessary expenses 

and results, with one flock of 1,100 sheep, in 

one year. 

EXPENSES. 

Shepherds and wages at $11 per month and rations $250.00 

Shearing and sundry expenses at shearing-time 77.00 

Dipping for scab, four cents per head 44.00 

Sheep dip for worms 5.00 

Extra labor 20.00 

$396.00 
Salt is not required near the coast or with mesquite grass. 

RECEIPTS. 
1,100 sheep, at 5 lbs. per head, equals 5,500 lbs. wool, 
at 20 cents per poxrnd 20 

Cash receipts $l,100.0e $1,100.00 

80 per cent, increase, 880 head at $3.00 2,640.00 



Less expenses $396.00 

Interest on $5,000 at 12 per cent 600.00 

Rent of place 100.00 



$3,740.00 



$1,096.00 



$2,644.00 

In this Statement, the expenses of the over- 
seer are not included. One is required in all 
cases; but one will suffice for three or four 
flocks. It is best to start with 1,600 head of 
ewes ; because after lambing they can be 
divided into three flocks of ewes with their 
lambs, with an expense of but one baccierro 
and one camp, and three shepherds. At the 
end of five months, the lambs are weaned and 
taken from their mothers. Then, until the 
next lambing time, which will take place in 
the succeeding March, the sheep can be well 
cared for by only two shepherds and one 
overseer, the ewes being in one flock and the 
lambs in another. 

The procedure and increase may be illus- 
trated as follows : 

We will suppose the new flock-master commences 

October, 1876, with ewes 1,600 

March, 1877, the ewes produce 80 per cent, of lambs 1,280 

September, 1877, weans the lambs ; places them in one 

nock, and the ewes in another, making only two flocks. 

March. 1878, there are ewes 1,600 

March, 1878, there are yearlings; one-half ewes, and the 

other half wethers 1,280 

March. 1878, there are lambs as 1877 1,280 

Making 4 flocks: 3 of ewes and lambs, and 1 of yearlings.. 4,160 

October, 1878, there are breeding ewes 1,600 

" " " young ewes 640 

Total to go to ram in October 2,240 

March, 1879, there are wethers, two-years-old 640 

" " " yearlings (ewes and weth^s) 1,280 

" " " breeding ewes 2,240 

'• " lambs 2,240 



October, 1879, there are breeding ewes 2,240 

" " " yearling ewes 640 

Making number of ewes to go to ram 2,880 

March, 1880, there are breeding ewes 2,880 

lambs 2,880 

" " " wethers, three years old 640 

" " " " two " 640 

" " " yearlings, ewes, and wethers 2,240 

Total number, March, 1880 9,280 

Advice to Immigrants. — The adventurer from 
a distance, seeking to invest in sheep husban- 
dry in Texas, is advised to proceed directly 
either to Corpus Christi or San Antonio, from 
each of which points he can make observa- 
tions with convenience, and obtain informa- 
tion as to desirable locations. He should 
spend three or four months looking around 



8S 



TEXAS. HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



for a range. The ewes may be carried from 
the West or bought in Texas. Mexican ewes 
can be purchased at 75 cents per head, and 
improved sheep for from $1.00 to $4.00. 
Texas-raised rams can be bought for $10, and 
imported rams for from $30 to $50. It would 
T)e more safe to rent a tract of land, which he 
can probably obtain at a very cheap rate — say 
$100 per year for enough land to feed two 
flocks of sheep of 1,100 each. As he may not 
like the business or the locality, it would be 
more prudent, at first, not to purchase a range. 
If he is willing to incur greater risks, to se- 
cure the proprietorship of an extensive range 
at a moderate price, he may go higher into the 
country, where the land belongs to the State. 
A 640 -acre certificate of State land can be 
bought for about $640, or a certificate of the 
alternate lands granted to railroads as low as 
$100.* Generally, the expense to secure a 
patent, including certificate and cost of sur- 
veying, would amount to about fifty cents to 
tlie acre. As two acres are required for a 
sheep, it will be seen, from the statement of 
increase before given, that the command of a 
Aery broad range is required to make the in- 
crease available; and that, with such a com- 
mand, there are chances for very large profits. 
The adventurer, if he has a family, should place 
them in some of the towns or villages most 
convenient to his range. His personal pre- 
sence on his range will be indispensable for 
his success, and he will find ample occupa- 
tion. But he can safely trust the Mexican 
baccierros, when making occasional visits to 
his family. 

The advantages of Texas for sheep-growing 
are now attracting persons of experience in 
Australia, and English and Scotch emigrants 
with capital. Besides our informant with his 
15,000 sheep, there are others in Nueces and 
Duval counties with flocks of ten to twenty 
thousand head; The Callahan flocks, in Starr 
county — the proprietor living at Laredo — num- 
ber 60,000 head. When we see how rapid 
the increase is, and that there are 80,000,000 
acres of land still unlocated in Texas, we can 
see that, if there is no legislation to disturb 
the wool business of the country, and the 
Mexican and the Indian depredations are 
checked, it will not be many years before 
Texas will rival Australia. Mr. Shaeffer states, 
as an illustration of the rapidity with which 
sheep husbandry is advancing in this State, 
that in 1876 San Antonio received but 600,000 
pounds of wool, which is sent through Gal- 
veston. In 1877 she received 2,000,000 pounds. 
The wool of Nueces and neighboring counties 
is shipped from Corpus Christi. In 1866 there 
were shipped only 600,000 pounds. This year 
there will be shipped 6,500,000 pounds. 

The following statement, illustrative of the 
profits which may be derived from sheep- 
growing in Texas, was made to us by Colonel 
John S Ford, a State senator, and formerly a 
member of the Congress of Texas, before an- 
nexation. We give it exactly in the language 
of Col. Ford, as noted by us and subsequently 
read to him : 

* Now about half that sura. 



" Dr. Thomas" Kearney, formerly collector 
of customs of the port of Corpus Christi, and 
Major James Carr, made, in 1870 or 1873, an 
investment of $5,000 in sheep husbandry ; 
bought ranch and buildings about sixty miles 
northwest from Laredo, Webb county, Texa^. 
— the land about 13,000 acres, and the sheep 
well improved. At the end of five years Dr. 
Kearney sold out his mterest to Carr — that is. 
one-half interest for $20,000. In August, 1877. 
Carr refused a $60,000 offer, which he had 
from William Yotaus, for his sheep ranch with 
the sheep; the exact facts being that Votaus 
offered $30,000 in cash, and one of the best 
improved places on the San Antonio River, 
which had cost him about $60,000." 

Mr. Shaeffer says that Carr ought to have 
taken the offer. 

To Texas, more than any other State, do the 
textile manufacturers of the North look for the 
supply of their mills. No other State is mak- 
ing such rapid progress in population, produc- 
tion and wealth. With an area which exceeds 
that of the German Empire by about sixty 
thousand miles: with a capacity to produce 
almost all the products of the temperate zone ; 
with sugar lands on the Southern border which 
could yield double the quantity of sugar and 
molasses required for our whole consumption, 
Texas is above all pre-eminent for its resources 
in textile material. On less than one-half of 
one per cent, of its area, it produced, in 1875. 
one-half of all the cotton consumed in the 
IJnited States, and four per cent, of its area 
would be capable of producing all the cotton 
now consumed in Europe and the United 
States — over six million bales.* Add to thi^ 
its capacity for wool production, and we have 
a State without parallel in the extent of its 
natural resources. 

On the first of January, 1878, the number 
of sheep were as follows, according to the 
Department of Agriculture : — 

NUMBER OF SHEEP IN SOUTHERN STATES, 
JANUARY, 1878. 

States. No. of Sheep. 

Delaware 35,000 

Maryland 151,800 

Virginia 422,000 

North Carolina 490,000 

South Carolina 175,000 

Georgia 382,300 

Florida 56,500 

Alabama 270,000 

Miesisbippi 250,00() 

Lonieiana 125,000 

Texas 3,674,700 

Arkansas 285,000 

Tennessee 850,000 

West Virginia 549,9t)0 

Kentucky 900,000 

Missouri 1,271.000 

Total 9,887,600 

* Report of Mr. Edward Atkinson, on cotton, at the 
International Exhibition. 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES 



39 



NUMBER OF SHEEP IN NORTHERN AND 
WESTERN STATES, JAN. 1878. 

States. No. of Slieep. 

Maine 525,800 

New Hampshire :i39,900 

Vermout 461,400 

Mas>^achusett8 «0,:j00 

Rhode Island 24,500 

Connecticut 92,500 

New York 1,518,100 

NewJ«rsey 128.300 

Pennsylvania I,607,b00 i 

Ohio 3,783,000 I 

Michigan 1.750,000 I 

Indiana 1,092,700 

Illinois 1,258,500 

Wisconsin 1,323,700 I 

Minnesota 300,000 

Iowa. 560,000 ! 

Kani-as 156,000 i 

Nebraska 62,400 [ 

California 6,561,000 

Oregon 1 ,074,600 

Nevada 72.000 

Colorado 600,000 

The Territories 2,600,000 



Total 



.25,852,300 



As example is better than precept, we give 
wme examples of fortunes made in Texas in 
ihe sheep business. The following is from 
Che Galveston News, special edition for Sep- 
tember 1, 1880: 

•'It may please those of your readers inter- 
ested in sheep matters, to learn a few facts 
about the Las Moras rancho, in Menard 
county, started on a comparatively extensive 
scale three or four years ago, by Mr. C, a 
French capitalist. 

' ' After an examination of the frontier, he 
pitched upon the waters of the upper San 
Saba as offering rare advantages for range 
iind water. He at once, by judicious pur- 
< liases, secured valuable water privileges, and 
moved some six thousand sheep, including 
some forty-live hundred ewes, up there, built 
large and substantial buildings, farms and 
})astures, and gave the business the closest 
ultention. 

The result demonstrates the advantages of 
Western Texas for this fast growing industry; 
and .shows what pluck and intelligence, com- 
bined with capital, can in a short time achieve. 

"After grading up his original stock with 
the greatest care, he now has some 15,000 sheep, 
including .some 400 lambs, all in the finest 
condition, while his clip for this spring runs 
over 50,000 pounds, and ranks among the very 
finest in the State for quality. 

"It is rumored that he is so much encour- 
aged that he has secured the co-operation of 
active gentlemen and capital, both in this 
State and abroad, with a view of extending 
the business and adding cattle-raising to it. 

"With a few more such men among us, 
Texas will, in a few years, astonish the world 
by the magnitude of her slieep interests, as 
she has already done with her cattle and 
cotton. 

"The above is but one of many hundreds of 
similar instances in Texas that might be cited. 
In three or four 3'ears Mr. C.'s flocks have 
increased 250 per cent., and probably much 
more than that in value per head, through 
grading up. JI<' is, therefore, prolcibly about 



500 per cent, better off than he was when he 

started the business, three or four years ago. 
When it is considered how rapidly sheep in- 
crease, and that the cost of keeping them in 
Texas is next to nothing, outside of the hire 
of herders, such results are not surprisino-. 
There is no business in which fortunes may be 
more certainly or rapidly made, and all West 
Texas has many living proofs of it. During 
the late war the writer's nearest neighbor, in a 
West Texas county, was a sheepman, who 
owned a flock of a thousand head at the 
beginning of the war, and nothing else what- 
ever, except a horse or two. He had not a 
foot of land, or a house to cover his head, but 
rented a small tract with a shanty on it. 
There was no accessible market for his wool 
in those days, so he was compelled to keep 
his clips on hand. He was very hard up, and 
waxed very ragged; but what with wild 
venison, wild turkey and wild trout, with an 
occasional wether and plenty of corn bread, 
he managed to keep himself fat and healthy. 
When the war closed he had his clips of five 
years, and in the meantime his flocks had in- 
creased to some nine thousand head. He 
waked up one morning and found himself 
rolling in wealth. He sold his fine wool at 
a high figure, put on broadcloth and silks, 
visited the cities, turned fool, concluded that 
he had mistaken his business, sold his fin(! 
flocks at a high figure, started life afresh as a 
big merchant in a big city, and in a short time 
' busted ' — busted all to pieces, without a 
copper left to him in the world. Truly the 
fool and his sheep are easily parted. 

"Another one of the writer's neighbors 
grew into sudden wealth in the same way. 
But he did not turn fool and turn merchant. 
He held on to his sheep, and died a short time 
ago a very rich man, owning a large real estate. 
The sheep, under his excellent management, 
did it all for him. 

"But this business, like any other, requires 
very close attention to turn out these fine 
results. Without this sort of attention, close 
and intelligent, there is no money it. 

"N. A. T." 

The News of a later date has the following 
from a San Antonio correspondent : 

"Mr. L. McKenzie, born and raised in 
Texas, and now thirty-five years old, began 
the sheep business in Maverick county, Aua. 
1, 1875. He had |740, for which he bought 
500 head of Mexican ewes. He immediately 
procured the best merino bucks attainable, 
and commenced grading his flock. His first 
year's yield of wool was 1,000 pounds, pure 
Mexican, for which he received IS^^c. per 
pound, or $125. This, of course, was not 
enough to keep his herder, but he liad credit 
and was economical. In his second year lie 
had a large number of half-breed sheep, and 
an increased quantity of wool of an improved 
quality. This has been continued to the pre 
sent time, during which he has maintained a 
family and schooled four children. He has 
just disposed of his fall clip in this city, and 
the following is the result of five j'ears in the 
sheep business: 



40 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



" Last spring Mr. McKenzie sold his wool 
at 2i%c. per pound, amounting to $1,560, 
and the sale of his fall clip just made, which 
amounted to more wool, brought only 2('3^c, 
per pound, and netted $1,287. A short time 
ago he sold 1,000 old ewes, muttons, etc., 
at $1.50 per head, aggregatmg $1,500. Total 
amount of wool sold in 1880, $4,347; includ- 
ing the sheep, $5,847. 

*' During these live years Mr. McKenzie, by 
close attention to his herds, and always on the 
alert to take advantage of any trade or busi- 
ness transaction that presented itself, has ac- 
cumulated property as follows, and on which 
he does not owe a dollar: Rancho of 2,560 
acres of fine land on Palo Blanco, Zavalla 
county, house, pens, etc., valued at $4,840; 
3,300 improved sheep at $2, $6,600; 400 head 
of cattle at $10, $4,000; ten head saddle horses 
and saddles at $25, $250; 500 goats at $1.50, 
$750 ; making a grand total as the result of 
five years' business, adding this year's sales, 
of $20,787. 

"He has now ten men in his employ, all of 
whom are Mexicans. His sheep-herders he 
pays $12 per month, gives them a bushel of 
corn meal, two goats for meat, 50 cents worth 
each of sugar and coffee, and 25 cents worth 
of salt per month. This, a blanket, a sheath- 
knife, probably an antique gun, a faithful dog 
for watching, not herding, is the simple-heart- 
ed Mexican pastora's (shepherd's) outfit. He 
has no tent or hut, and sleeps with the sheep 
wherever night overtakes him. Over every 
three or four pastures is a corporal or overseer, 
who is required to keep track of the herders' j 
whereabouts, and see that their wants are sup- 
plied. There is usually an overseer of the en- 
tire rancho, who, next to the proprietor, has 
charge of the business of the rancho. These 
pastoras are usually very faithful, and are pre- 
ferred by those who have become accustomed 
to them to any other nationality. Mr. Mc- 
Kenzie tells of a man, about forty years old, 
who has worked for him over four years, and 
who declares that he will stay with him al- 
ways. He has been born and raised at the 
business, and never got more than five dollars 
per month till he came to Texas and worked 
for McKenzie. The old man gets a furlough 
of a few days every six months, when he goes 
to Eagle Pass, spends all the money due him 
and what he can get advanced, amounting to 
about six months' wages, in drinking, gam- 
bling and having lots of fun, according to his 
idea of the thing, and then returns to his flock 
perfectly contented for the next six months. 
Last year, with the assistance of his faithful 
dog, he killed over 100 wild-cats and panthers. 
Herding with these men is a life-time occuj)a- 
tion; tiie}^ have no hope or wish to do or at- 
tain anything better, and they acquire a won- 
derful proficiency. Mr. McKenzie says that 
the man Pancho, referred to, has the wonder- 
ful faculty of knowing every sheep in his 
fiock. Last spring, when his goats had kids, 
he had to stake out each kid for several days, 
because they will not follow the dam when 
very young. He had thus over 150 kids tied 
to stakes, and when tlu; hot sun came out he 



untied each one of them, carried them to the 
shade in the sheds, and in the evening return- 
ed each to its proper stake. This feat was 
witnessed by Mr. McKenzie, who knew that 
each kid was at its proper place, because the 
mother does not only know its young, but re 
turns to the stake where it was left, and not 
finding its own offspring refuses to accept a 
substitute. Not a single instance of refusal 
occurred; the old Mexican had properly re 
turned each kid to its stake. 

"Probably few men in West Texas can 
show a better record than M^ McKenzie, and 
while not every man has his good fortune, in 
the five years he never having met a single 
disas';er, still the sheep business now offers 
greater attractions than any other in Texas. 
The opportunities are not all gone, and, in 
fact, sheep hubandry in Texas is only in its 
infancy. Many improvements have been in- 
troduced within the past two or three years, 
and there is room for many more. Lands are 
plenty yet, and all it needs is a thorough 
knowledge of the business and close atten- 
tion. "Hans Miokle." 

We cannot better conclude this article (al 
ready extended) than by the reproduction of 
the following letter from Mr. H. J. Chamber 
lin, of Bell county (Central), Texas, a man of 
great experience and success in sheep culture 
in his section, where more attention is paid to 
the improvement of the flocks by judicious 
breeding and careful handling than on the 
western or southwestern frontier. 

{From Burke's Texas Almanac, 1880.) 

' ' In again attempting to furnish an article 
for the Texas Almanac on the subject of wool 
growing, I am made to look back over a 
period of nineteen years, when I first engag- 
ed in this vocation on Texas soil. Then a 
few stationary herds, mostly of the Mexican 
stock, made up the sum total of a seemingl}'^ 
insignificant business. Texas is now regard 
ed as the second largest wool-growing State 
in the Union, having nearly or about four 
millions of sheep, and perhaps before another 
issue of the Almanac, Texas will rank first in 
the production of this great staple in the 
world. 

" Not only has it been proven that Texas is 
to lead in the quantity of sheep and wool 
grown, but also in the raising of superior 
thorough-bred animals, possessing individual 
merit, surpassing any on the face of the globe 
for weight of fleece and other desirable 
qualities. 

"The haphazard, slipshod, penny-wise 
and-pound-foolish methods of raising sheej) 
in Texas have yielded to skillful breeders of 
the very best animals and producers of wool, 
who know to a certainty that their flocks, 
bred to thoroughbred stock, possessing re 
quisite wool growing qualities and vigor of 
constitution, are to them more valuable than 
mines of gold, and the care of them as pleas- 
ant and healthy as any vocation they could 
undertake. 

"About all of the popular breeds of sheej) 
known are successfully grown in Texas. The 
nature of the large, long-woolled breeds, to 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



41 



gether with the great distance from our 
mutton markets, has caused them to be but 
little grown. Some persons have been 
prejudiced against Merinos by the use of, or 
attempt to breed, sheep brought into the State 
and called thoroughbred animals, that were 
bad grades, not possessing either constitution 
or other merits ; also, by the purchase of stock 
in such a pampered condition, that they were 
better adapted for quiet security in a box, 
carefully fed, than for use or profit. It is no 
wonder that sensible persons become disgusted 
with such stock. The Spanish Merino, or as 
we generally term them, American Merinos, 
on account of the great changes wrought upon 
them since they were imported from Spain to 
America, some seventy years ago, can be 
grown in large herds; they are easily con- 
trolled, excel any sheep in the production of 
wool, and make very good mutton; hence, 
they are most grown on Texas ranches. 

"The improved condition of the wool 
market has given a new impetus to the sheep- 
growing business. Some men, of course, in 
their zeal to acquire a fortune without labor 
or much time, will rush into this business and 
make a shipwreck of it. 

"During last winter a great many sheep 
died, and in some instances nearly whole 
flocks were lost. These sheep generally be- 
longed to adventurers, above referred to ; were 
in charge of men not having experience or 
practical judgment, or, perhaps, had been 
driven long distances and went into winter in 
very bad condition. In no instance did I 
learn of any serious loss among stock well 
herded, and supplied with such necessary 
things as are possessed by almost every flock- 
master. In Central Texas, although the grass 
cropped from the prairies by the sheep will 
.sustain them tolerably well, yet experience 
has taught me that a little grain or cotton seed, 
principally fed during December and January, 
is an expense doubly repaid by an increased 
.jimount of wool, and more valuable lambs the 
following spring. 

"Abundance of good sheep-grazing lands 
•can be had convenient to the long lines of 
railroad that cross and intersect our State, 
near communities having good society, with 
-church and school privileges, at from two to 
five dollars per acre; and further out, in new 
counticB and aistant from towns, good ranch 
land can be had in quantities as low as fifty 
•cents per acre. 

' ' Upon these millions of acres of unoccupied 
Hands, nowhere surpassed for stock-raising 
purposes, we give a welcome hand to all 
honest emigrants, whether they come to 
■invest their capital, or 'by their strong arms 
<ild us in the development of our great Lone 
^tar State, and assure to them the peaceable 
•enjoyment of ail the good things their capital 
or labor may procure. 

"■ Bell County, Texas, September 26. 1879." 
GOATS. 

Many persons believe that there is even a 
larger profit in raising goats than sheep in 
Texas. Certain it is, that in everv section, 



but particularly in the west and southwest, 
this useful little animal thrives and prospers 
amazingly. Where the horse, the cow, or 
the sheep will starve, he finds his choicest 
food, picking from barren hillside or drouthy 
plain the thorny leaf of the prickly pear, or 
cropping with apparent satisfaction and com- 
fort the scantiest herbage. 

To the sheep-raiser in the West, the goat is 
indispensable, as he furnishes meat to the 
Mexican herders, who prefer "goat's flesh" 
to anything else. And a small flock for that 
purpose is generally kept along with the herd 
of sheep. None, so far as we know.have devo 
ted themselves exclusively to goat-raising ii) 
Texas, but those who have tried it, on anything 
like an extensive scale, say it pays very hand- 
somely. A gentleman at Brackett, in Kinney 
county, told the writer but a short time since, 
that his flock of about 2,500 goats, which he 
had been managing several years, had netted 
him forty per cent, per annum on the invest- 
ment. 

Whether goat-raising as a business be profit- 
able or not, nearly every farmer will find a 
small flock a valuable addition to the economy 
and pleasure of his living. A beef or a hog 
cannot always be safely killed, for fear of 
losing the meat, but the smallest familj'^ can 
dispose of a kid, and there is nothing better 
for the table. 

THE ANGORA GOAT. 

In 1849 eight head of these goats were 
brought to Austin, Texas, by Mr. R. William- 
son, agent of a Tennesse company. They 
were then known as the Cashmere Shawl 
Goat. With these, and the occasional import - 
tation of others, the goat has become generally 
distributed through Texas. There is a fine 
flock at Leon Springs, Bexar Co. 

In October, 1875, Mr. J. W. Dunn, of 
Corpus Christi, imported a small flock pur- 
chased from Col. Robert W. Scott, of Frank- 
fort, Kentucky. After four years' experience, 
Mr. Dunn says: "I find them to be both 
healthy and hardy — standing our wet northers 
better than the common goat. The males 
will shear about five pounds and the females 
about three and a-half pounds each. My last 
spring clip was sold to Messrs. Kitching 
Brothers, of New York, for seventy cents per 
pound, for the entire lot. And this, when 
the best Texas improved wool from sheep 
sold at eighteen cents. The goat is nearly 
omnivorous, eatmg almost every shrub, and 
can live with but little grass. There are in 
Texas millions of acres of rough, hilly country, 
admirably adapted to range for goats, and 
where nothing else could be made to live. 
The goat is naturally a hardy animal, and free 
from the diseases so destructive to flocks of 
sheep. The Angora is a success in California, 
and, from my experience, I have no hesitation 
in saying they can be made as profitable in 
Texas as in California, or even Natalia, their 
native Asiatic home." 

HORSES AND MULES. 

That Texas is well adapted to the raising 
of horses and iiiulcs, as well as cattle and 



42 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



sheep, is amply proved by the fact that, upon 
the first settlement of the country by Ameri- 
cans, and for thirty years thereafter, there 
were more or less wild horses or " mustangs" 
in all sections, and in the unsettled portions 
tliey were numbered by hundreds of thousands. 
The wild horse of Texas sprang from escaped 
gentle stock, first introduced by the Spaniards 
in their conquest of Mexico, of which Texas 
was then an integral part. They were the true 
Andalusian horse, with more or less Arabic 
blood, and as beautiful specimens of that 
noble animal as could be found in the world. 

Our present stock of horses in Texas are 
grades upon the "mustang" (mostly half- 
breeds), but with the exception of a little gain 
in size, improvement in temper and tractability, 
have no great advantage over the original stock. 
These half-breeds average about fourteen 
hands in height, bat are very strong, active 
and enduring. A good one will carry a man 
upon his back day after day, from forty to 
titty miles, and live on grass. Their qualities 
as saddle animals are unsurpassed, and for the 
purpose that they are mostly used (driving 
cattle) they are better adapted than thorough- 
breds. A Texas pony will carry his rider, in 
a wild chase after cattle, day after day, with 
nothing but the prairie grass to subsist on. 
These ponies are worth from fifteen to fifty 
dollars, according to size and quality. The 
average price for a broi?^en animal would 
probably be thirty dollars. The cost of 
raising them is but little more than the cost of 
raising a "beef steer," perhaps no more. 
They live upon "the range," and only require 
a little looking after, and an occasional salting 
to keep them gentle. 

Of late years, however, much attention has 
been paid to the improvement of horses and 
mules, and at any of the country fairs first 
rate specimens of the Texas-bred racer or the 
trotter can be seen. 

The Texas mule is generally small, but 
toagh and wiry, and capable of immense 
endurance. Like his half brother, the "cow- 
pony," he is admirably adapted to the country 
and its demands. The price of good, broken 
Spanish mules, as they are called, will range 
from forty to seventy dollars. It costs no 
more to raise them than it does the "cow- 
pony." 

HOGS. 

Texas is peculiarly adapted to raising hogs, 
and the success attending this business is 
leading to a large annual increase. The 
greater portion of Eastern Texas is well 
timbered with oak and nut-bearing trees, 
which furnish abundant food for hogs,, while 
the large extent of post-oak timber and the 
"river bottoms" of Central and Southern 
Texas, supply enormous quantities of the 
"porker's" favorite food, acorns and pecans. 

Very few men have made the raising of 
hogs a special business, or acquired wealth at 
it, for the reason that until very recently we 
have not had railroad or other facilities for 
gettmg live hogs to market, and the climate 
of Texas is loo warm to make the saving of 
pork on a large scale a certainty. Farnu'i-.s 



can always save meat for their own use and an 
much for sale, but they must have everything 
in readiness, so that when a "norther" comes, 
they can commence killing at once, and make 
the slaughter " quick and lively," so that the 
animal heat may be thoroughly expelled 
before warm weather sets in again. 

The " northers " in the autum are but of 
short duration, but in January and February 
they extend sometimes over a period of severa; 
days, and the watchful farmer will have 
several opportunities to slaughter with safety 
as many animals as he is likely to take care of 
or desire. 

The best range for hogs is open post-oaks, 
and near a river bottona, where there is an 
ample supply of pecan trees. This furnishes 
them an abundance of grass in summer, and 
nuts and acorns during fall and winter. Hogfe 
left to themselves soon get wild, and to make 
the business pay they must either be confined 
in pastures, or some one must go among them 
every day or two, aqd call them together, 
feeding a little corn. A very little will sufiice 
to keep them gentle. 

Considerable attention has lately been paid 
to the improvement of the stock, and the 
"Berkshire," " Chester White" a*jd " Poland 
China," and other choice breeds are rapidly 
taking the place of the lank Texas "razor- 
back." 

With the railroad facilities now at hand for 
shipping live hogs, considering the cheapness 
of rearing them, no better opening presents 
itself to the man of moderate means, than a 
"hog ranche " in a proper locality. 
POULTRY. 

Domestic fowls of all kinds do well in 
Texas, and require but little care or attention. 
The main thing is to provide an abun(tant 
range, fresh, clean water, and allow them to 
live out of doors and roost in the trees. 
Under these favorable conditions domestic 
fowls "increase, multiply aud replenish the 
earth," in Texas, with amazing rapidity. 

GAME AND FISH. 

Texas has long been noted for the vast 
number and varieties of its game — from the 
noble buffalo (bison) to the smallest of the 
feathered tribe. Nowhere else on the Ameri- 
can continent can the eager sportsman spend 
his time more pleasantly, whether his favorite 
weapon be the rifle ©r the shot-gun. Of 
course liere, as elsewhere, the larger game 
animals have receded before the march of 
civilization, but there are still enough left to 
satisfy the most exacting. 

Among the principal game animals we have 
the buffalo, big horn (rare), bear, antelope, 
deer (two varieties), cougar, wild-cat. wolf 
(three varieties), sqrurrel (three varieties), rac- 
coon, opossum, rabbit (three varieties), prairie 
dog, havalina (Mexican hog or "peccary"), 
and others of les.ser importacce. 

The buffalo {Biao/t, Americatius) is still quite 
plentiful on the extreme northwestern fron- 
tier, but he is rapidly disappearing before the 
destructive Jong-range rifles of the cow-boy 
and the lumter. Wlien they are known to be 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



4a 



"down," hunting parties are organized at all 
the frontier posts, and the work of destruc- 
tion goes remorselessly on. The buffalo hun- 
ter lives on the "range" and follows the poor 
beast with untiring activity, his object being 
only to secure the hide and tongue. Thou- 
sands are thus slaughtered every winter. 

The buffalo ranges from the " Panhandle" 
of Texas to the Pecos River, but is rarely 
seen west of that stream. 

The black bear ( UrsuM Americanus) is found 
all over the State wherever the covert is suffi- 
cient. He is very plentiful among the rugged 
hills of the west, where the "bear-grass," his 
favorite food, is abundant. This he tears up, 
devouring the soft, pulpy mass of which its 
root consists. 

The big-horn, or Rocky Mountain sheep, 
has been observed in but one locality, viz. : 
the Guadalupe Mountains, on the southern 
boundary of New Mexico. 

Antelope are found everywhere on the west- 
ern prairies, remote from the thickly settled 
districts. They go in herds of from ten to 
five hundred, and are extremely difficult to 
approach. They are gifted, however, with a 
most inordinate curiosity, and can frequently 
be enticed within gun-shot by the concealed 
hunter throwing up his hat or waving a hand- 
kerchief. 

Of deer we have the "black-tail" (C. Macea- 
tis), and the common Virginia deer {G. Vir- 
ginianus). The first named is not found east 
of the Pecos River, and not in very great 
numbers anywhere. They frequent the high, 
bald mountain ranges, and usually go in small 
herds. The "Black-tail" is somewhat larger 
than the common deer. Long and prominent 
ears and a small black tuft of hair on the tail 
are its distinguishing features. The Virginia 
or common red deer is too well known to re- 
quire any particular description. He is scat- 
tered all over the State and in many sections 
is very abundant. On the coast prairies, large 
herds' of them may still be seen from the win- 
dows of the passing railwa}'^ carriage. Here, 
in former years, before the scream of the iron 
horse startled these peaceful plains, was his 
favorite feeding ground. The writer remem- 
bers, on one occasion, twenty-five years ago, 
on the extensive prairie bordering the coast 
near Aransas Bay, to have seen countless 
thousands of deer and several noble herds of 
the wild horse (mustangs). But there were 
no long-range rifles in those days, and but few 
hunters. 

The cougar (Mexican lion) and panther, 
though not plentiful, are still found in vari- 
ous portions of the State. They are very 
timid, except when wounded or starved, when 
they become formidable. 

Wildcats are plentiful and are usually 
found in the mountains or heavily timbered 
river bottoms. They are generally hunted 
with dogs. 

Of wolves we have three varieties, viz : the 
Black, Coyote, and Lobo (in the vernacular, 
"Loafer.") The first named is rare and its 
pelt is highly prized. Coyotes are very abun- 
dant on the prairies, and the lonely wayfarer 



who camps out by himself is apt to be render- 
ed a little nervous by their incessant howling ; 
but they are great cowards. The Lobo is the 
largest of the three and looks formidable, but 
he is as timid as his half-brother, the coyote. 
Both are great pests to the sheepmen. 

Of squirrels there are the fox, black or cliff, 
the grey and ground. The cliff squirrel alone 
is peculiar, living as he does in the rocks and 
cliffs, and never, so far as the observation of 
the writer extends, taking to a tree. 

'Coons and 'possums are found everywhere 
in the greatest abundance, and afford much 
sport to the boys and * 'cur dogs. " 

One of the distinguishing features of the 
Texas prairie is the 'mule-eared" or "jackass" 
rabbit, as he is commonly called — an animal 
in fact identical with the English hare, with 
some slight modification, perhaps, induced by 
difference of habitat. The common "swamp" 
and "cotton-tail" varieties are found every 
where. 

Prairie-dogs are found in great numbers 
west of longitude 99°. 

The Peccary, Havalina, Mexican or wild 
hog (all local names for the same animal) is 
found in Southwest Texas and on the sand 
hills of the Llano Estacado. They go in 
droves of from hidf a dozen to twenty and 
are exceedingly belligerent if disturbed. They 
are not considered very good eating. 

Of foxes we have only the common small 
grey fox, a very contemptible specimen of his 
tribe. 

GAME BIRDS. 

At the head of these stands the noble wild 
turkey {Meleagris gallopato), which is very 
abundant in many parts of the State, but so 
well known as to require no special descrip- 
tion. 

Of the aquatic birds we have the swan 
{Cygnus Americanus), the Canada and snow 
goose, and brant {Anser bermcla) ; these begin 
to arrive about the 10th October, and remain 
till May 1st. Ducks visit us in vast numbers 
every winter, and of them we find some 
twenty varieties, including Teals, Mallard, 
Canvas-back, Pintail, Black, Wood, Shovel 
ler, Ringneck, Widgeon, Red-head, Ruffle 
head. Butter-ball. Scaup, Gadwall, Ruddy 
and three varieties of Merganser. The coast 
region of Texas is especially remarkable for 
the number and variety of the water-fowl that 
frequent it. Myriads of ducks, geese, swan, 
plover, snipe and curlew assemble here every 
winter, and the sportsman can then satiate 
himself with slaughter. At the mouth of the 
Trinity River is a famous "roosting" ground. 
On certain low, marshy islands here assemble 
every night countless thousands of water- fowl 
from their feeding grounds round about. In 
the morning when they disperse in search of 
"breakfast," the sky is fairly darkened with 
their numbers. 

Two varieties of cranes are with us during 
the winter, the "Sandhill" {Orus Canadenm), 
and the Trumpeter crane {Grus Americana). 
These arrive in September, but few of them 
are killed, as they frequent the prairies and 
open fields, and are very wary. The Trum- 



44 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



peter crane is a beautiful bird, standing quite 
six feet high, with white plumage relieved by 
black wings and back. On the level prairies 
of the coast they may be seen stalking with 
dignified steps in every direction, lazy look- 
ing, but having a watchful eye on the in- 
truder. They must be shot with the rifle at 
long range. 

Quail are abundant, and of them we have 
five varieties, viz. : the Virginia {Ortyx Virgin- 
iaiius), Massena (0. Massena), Blue {Caliye'pla 
squamata), Gambel's {Lopliortyx Gamheli) and 
the TexHS quail {Ortyx Texanns). Of these 
the Virginia quail, or common "Bob White," 
is found in Northern Texas only. The Texas 
quail has the same note as 0. Virginianus, 
and the only perceptible difference between 
them is that the former is not so large or so 
brilliantly marked as the latter. The Texas 
quail is found all over the State in vast num- 
bers, lies well to the dog, and is in all respects 
equal in gamy qualities both in the field and 
on the table, to his twin brother Ortyx Vir 
ginianus. The Blue, Massena, and Gambel's 
quail have all the same range, viz. : between 
latitude 27'* and 30^, and west of the 100th 
degree of longitude through to Mexico and 
New Mexico. The blue quail is of a steel-blue 
color, about the size of a Virginia quail, very 
strong and active, rarely lying to the dog. 
They go in large flocks, and have a call simi- 
lar to that of the Guinea fowl. The Massena 
quail the writer has found very abundant in 
Crockett county, along the rough lands of 
Devil's River. They lie well to the dog, in- 
deed too well. 

The prinnated grouse, or prairie-chicken 
{Tetrao cwpido) is found in all the prairies north 
of latitude 29® and east of 98° longitude, 
though on Red River it is? found as far west as 
longitude 100*. In our climate the season opens 
about the middle of July, when the young 
birds are well grown and quite strong on the 
wing. At this season a more toothsome del- 
icacy can hardly be found. 

Two varieties of snipe are with us during 
the winter. The common snipe {Scolopax 
Wilsonii) and the red- breast or New York 
snipe {8. Novehoracensia). The woodcock is 
not abundant in Texas, though found in the 
eastern part of the State. 

Of the plover and sandpiper tribe we have 
many varieties, of which the principal are the 
Tattler {Tringa bartramia). Golden {FvItuh 
charadrius), Bull-head, or Swiss plover (C/mrw- 
drius Helvetica), Marlin, or mountain plover 
(C. montanvs). Of the waders we have the 
greater and lesser Telltale, and all kinds of 
sandpipers. We have also the common long- 
heeled curlew {Numinius longirostris), which 
is found in immense flocks on our prairies. 
Tlie wild-pigeon (C. Canadensis) is common 
in the timbered regions of the State. The 
Carolina dove (Columba Carolinensis), is every- 
where met with. 

Although not a game bird, one well worthy 
of description, and peculiar to Texas and 
possibly Mexico, is the ground cuckoo {Geo- 
cocyx Mexicans is), locally known by various 
names: "Carre-camino" {roadrunver), "Pni- 



sano," "Chapparal Cock." "Prairie Cock," 
etc. This bird, somewhat larger than a quail, 
has a very long tail and crested head, with 
brown and sombre plumage. It is solitary in 
its habits, possesses great fleetness of foot, 
and never takes wing unless pushed, when it 
flies only a short distance. There are num- 
bers of birds and beasts beside those named, 
but none of much interest to the sportsman. 
FISH IN TEXAS. 
The game fish par excellence of Texas is the 
black bass, or trout, as he is improperly called. 
He is found in all the clear streams and lakes, 
and ranges from four ounces to as many 
pounds, or even larger in size. Even the 
smallest spring branches are usually stocked 
with this fine fish, if they have deep pools 
here and there. The white perch abounds in 
some of the streams, and most of the lakes 
and ponds. The catfish is found in all the 
waters, and is of three or four varieties, tile 
Channel or Blue Cat being the best. In the 
clear streams of West Texas this fish is gamy, 
strong, active and an excellent fish for the 
table. He is not esteemed more highly, only 
because he is abundant. 

The "Buffalo" fish is the largest of the 
numerous sucker family in the State. It of- 
ten attains a weight of twenty pounds and 
upwards. It is a good food fish, and found 
in every part of the State. It is especially 
fond of sluggish waters. Its habits are very 
similar to the European carp, which is also a 
sucker. 

Of the perch family there are many varie- 
ties. 

The soft-shell turtle inhabits all of our 
streams west of the Brazos. In the quality 
of his flesh he is equal to any turtle. 

The coast or salt-water fishes, which furnish 
fine sport and fine eating, are too numerous 
to describe, but we miiy mention the pompano, 
the sheepshead, the red-fish, the Spanish mack- 
erel and sea bass as among the best. Oysters 
are common along the whole coast, and sell 
all along the railroads, far iu the interior, at 
about one dollar per hundred. 
GERMAN CARP. 
This valuable food fish has been succf.ss- 
fully imported from Germany into the United 
States, and a supply has been furnished to our 
fish commissioner in Texas. Those that have 
been placed in Texas waters have grown with 
amazing rapidity, showing that our lakes and 
rivers are well adapted to the fish. The carp 
can be as easily cultivated as pigs or chickens, 
and there is no reason why all the streams, 
lakes and ponds of the State should not be 
stocked with them in a few years. 

PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 

The public institutions of Texas are such 
as one might expect to find in a liberal, high- 
spirited and benevolent community. Ample 
provision is made for the blind and the deaf 
mutes and the insane. The former are taught 
remunerative occupations, so that they may 
go abroad in the world occupying the honor- 
able position of self-supporting citizens. The 
latter receive the servi(;es of the best medical 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



45 



skill in aid of their restoration to reason. All 
these buildings are located at Austin. 

By the terms of the treaty of annexation 
between the United States and the Republic 
of Texas, ten millions of dollars were paid to 
the State of Texas. A large portion of this 
money was expended in the building of deaf 
and dumb, blind and lunatic asylums, and 
certain portions of the public domain were 
set apart for their support. As these lands 
are sold, the proceeds are invested in bonds 
and become a permanent fund for their sup- 
port. 

THE BLIND ASYLUM. 

The Blind Asylum is located, as all the 
asylums are, on an elevated site in the suburbs 
of Austin, The air is salubrious, the water 
excellent, the buildings commodious and 
comfortable. Through the influence of Sen- 
ator (then Governor) Coke, the services of an 
oculist of great skill and national reputation 
were secured for the institution; the result 
has been that several who were supposed 
doomed to perpetual darkness, now see. The ! 
present number of pupils is eighty-four ; these 
are all being educated and instructed in such 
useful arts as they are capable of practising. 
Some of the male graduates are in the busi- 
ness of broom and brush making ; others earn 
independent livings as music teachers and 
piano tuners. Among the lady graduates are 
accomplished musicians and dressmakers. 
Some of the latter compete in skill and dex- 
terity with those who are blessed with the 
sense of sight, and reproduce, by the sense of 
touch, fashions and styles of dress that they 
will never see. The institution is supplied 
liberally with pianos, organs, brass and string 
instruments, sewing machines, and all other 
necessaries for the instruction of the pupils. 
The annual expenditures are about $20,000. 
It may be mentioned in this connection as in- 
dicative of the forms taken in Texas by pri- 
vate benevolence, that H. M. Hoxie, Esq., 
general manager of the International & Great 
Northern Railway, furnishes any and all the 
pupils of the blind and deaf mute asylums 
with free railroad passes, whenever it is de- 
sirable for them to visit their homes, which 
they all do at least once a year. Dr. Frank 
Rainey, in his circular to parents, says: "Pupils 
admitted at any time. Everything here is free 
of charge — board, washing, tuition, books, in- 
struments, doctors' bills, etc." 

THE TEXAS INSTITITION FOR THE DEAF 
AND DUMB. 

The location of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum 
is on one of the Austin hills, and affords nu- 
merous views of most charming landscape. 
Besides the usual instruction in sign language, 
and the arts usually taught in s\ich institu- 
tions, a most successful effort has been made 
during the last few years to instruct the deaf 
mutes in practical printing. A very large 
proportion of the State printing is now per- 
formed by the pupils. Its accuracy, neatness 
and even elegance attest their skill. The 
pupils now have the opportunity of acquiring 
skill in an art that will always afford them 
lucrative employment. This is an application 



of practical benevolence which will commend 
itself to every philanthropist. The number 
of pupils at present residing in the institution 
is about seventy. 

All deaf mutes of the State between the 
ages of ten and twenty years, of sound mind, 
good moral character, and free from contagious 
disease, are entitled to admission. 

No charge is made for board, tuition, wash- 
ing, medicines, medical attendance, books, or 
stationery, all these expenses being paid by 
the State. 

TEXAS LUNATIC ASYLUM. 
The Lunatic Asylum is delightfully located, 
and has ample grounds for the exercise and 
recreation of patients. These grounds are 
elegantly laid out and beautified with flowers 
and growing plants. It was first opened March 
1, 1861. From that date until October 3, 1880, 
there had been 1,418 admissions; of these 636 
recovered —138 improved ; remained unim- 
proved, 59; died and escaped, 216; remained, 
Oct. 31, 1880, 369. 

A large farm attached to the institution sup- 
plies an abundance of milk and vegetables. 
Because of the increase of population the 
buildings already in use have been over-crowd- 
ed, and the project of either enlarging those, 
or building another asylum in some other lo- 
cality, is under consideration. 

TEXAS PENITENTIARIES. 
Texas is perhaps the first State to apply the 
just rule — that convicts are to be treated kind- 
ly — but they are not to be made public bene- 
ficiaries. As a very large proportion of crime 
arises from a hatred of work, Texas prescribes 
hard work as the cure. Honest men are not 
taxed to feed rogues. The Texas peniten- 
tiaries are more than self-supporting, the 
surplus being nearly $100,000 annually. The 
convicts are well fed, comfortably clothed, 
are taught useful employments, and are liber- 
ally dealt with on discharge; hut they are not 
petted as in some States, and they are made tcr 
work. Divine wisdom prescribed labor as the 
proper punishment for the first crime, and 
human intellect has not yet found a better. 
On his disciiarge each prisoner receives a suit 
of clothing, $20 in cash, and transportation to 
the county from which he came, or its equiva- 
lent in money. 

The labor of the prisoner is let out to the 
highest bidder. These can sublet the labor of 
such portion as they cannot employ. The 
following figures, taken from the report dated 
October 31, 1880, will show how convict 
labor is made productive. 

The convicts on hand are distributed as 
follows, viz.: 

In prison proper 342 

Engaged m prison construction at Rusk 256 

On railroad construction trains iriU 

In wood-cuttinjf forces on Texas and Pacific railroad 215 

.^t Kelly's iron furnace, Marion county lOi 

On plantations in different localities 1033 

Miscellaneous employment 39 

Total .2157 

ThcLe is a regular, systematic inspection of 
all gangs hired out, and it is believed that the 
convicts of Texas are better cared for" than 
those of most other States. The old peniten- 
tiary at Huntsville having become insufficent 



46 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



to accommodate the greatly increasing popu- 
lation, another has been constructed in Rusk, 
Cherokee county. That location was selected 
with a view to utilize the labor of the convicts 
upon the iron mines in the neighborhood. 

The Rusk penitentiary has been constructed 
after the very best models. It contains 500 
cells, intended each for two prisoners. The 
penitentiary at Huntsville, while upon an 
older model, is an excellent institution. 

CLIMATE, TEMPERATURE 
AND RAINFALL. 

The area of Texas presents two distinct 
climates, with an intermediate region, sharing 
in a marked degree the peculiarities of both. 
These are bounded by lines or belts of longi- 
tude rather than of latitude, and are due 
mainly to the influence of moisture derived 
from the Gulf of Mexico, which is our natural 
reservoir. 

An examination of the reports of the Chief 
Signal officer of the United States, will exhibit 
a marked prevalence of E. S. E. and south 
winds, not only along the coast of Texas, but 
at interior points. These southerly and south- 
easterly winds, starting from the boundary of 
the regular trades, r)low through a great 
portion of the year, almost with the regularity 
of the monsoon. They come from the Gulf, 
charged with vapor almost to saturation, 
w^hich is gradually deposited as they proceed 
inland. West of the 100th degree of longitude 
they either cease to blow with the same 
regularity, or they have, in a great measure, 
lost their humidity — for in the travel of such 
wind as passes from south to north, along 
meridians west of 97*^, it is obvious they have 
no opportunity to imbibe humidity after their 
passage over the Cordillera range of Mexico, 
whilch having an average elevation of 
more than 10,000 feet, effectually rob the 
passing clouds of their moisture. All winds, 
Sien, ascending from the level of the Pacitic, 
even if saturated at starting, must be very 
dry when they reach the west side of the 
mountains. Hence the prevalence of drouth 
in that region of Texas west of the 100th 
degree of longitude. 

This delightful trade wind serves in Texas 
the double purpose of conveying moisture and 
of tempering a heat in summer that would 
otherwise be severe — the nearer the sea coast 
the cooler and more brisk the current, but 
the entire area of prairie and a large portion 
of the timbered country feel its benign influ- 
ences. So that, what in many other countries 
of this latitude would be termed "the hot 
season," is here not only tolerable, but often 
pleasant through nearly the entire summer. 
Sunstrokes are unknown, and exercise, even 
under the blazing sun, is rendered agreeable 
by the constant fanning of the " sweet south." 

THK NOKTIIKUS OF TEXAS. 

It is understood by many persons at a 
distance, that the Texas " northers " are.dread 
f ul winter storms, which come on so suddenly, 
and are so severe and extremely cold, that 
man and beast, caught out on the open prai- 
ries, a few miles from sli(!ller, are liable to b(! 



frozen to death in a very short lime. In a 

late "Manual of Geography " the children are 

taught that "Texas is famous for its north 

winds. These come on at times so suddenly 

I in winter, and are so cold and severe, that 

! both man and beast have been known to 

I perish in them." 

! Texas northers are sometimes undoubtedly 
I severe, sudden and violent, but by no means 
1 deserve their reputation for the severity of the 
I cold which accompanies them ; nor is the 
force of the wind ever sufficient to do any 
i damage to trees, fences, or houses. 

The people in Texas divide these winter 
storms into "wet northers" and 'dry north- 
ers." The "wet northers "are those wkich 
bring rain or sleet, and usually last twelve or 
fourteen hours, passing off with a moderate 
north or northwest wind. These really do 
more damage than the "dry northers," for 
stock exposed to their influence become wet, 
and suffer extremely from tne cold. The 
"dry northers" are attended with peculiar 
phenomena, witnessed nowhere else. 

For several hours preceding the most violent 
of these "dry northers," there is almost a dead 
calm, and the air is unusually warm and 
sultry. A lew low% sluggish clouds drift 
about in the eddying atmosphere. A dark, 
muddy-looking cloud-wave next appears, low 
down, ail across the northern horizon, which is 
the "precautionary signal" of the near appoach 
of this strange Texas storm. A few minutes 
more and the terrible roaring of the norther 
is distinctly heard. All hands out of doors 
are now running to the house for shelter, 
where the logs are piled upon the ample 
hearth. At the same time, the live stock on 
the prairies have turned tail and are fleeing to 
the friendly shelter of bottom, bluff, or ravine. 
All this and more, too; but be not alarmed, 
for there is no danger, the colts on the prairi'^ 
and the children in tli<^ yard are kicking up 
their heels, sporting amid the pranks of the 
whistling wind. But the dark cloud-wave is 
now over, and no rain, except it may be a 
ver}^ slight mist, followed by a dry, blue, 
misty haze, with the peculiar smell which is 
developed by a flash of lightning, though at 
other times it reminds one of flne straw smok(i 
in its odor. It is highly probable that this 
turbidness and odor are due to the ozone set 
free by the high electric excitation in a dry 
norther. 

Let this be as it may, there is evidently, in 
these dry " blue northers," (as they are called) 
a state of high electrical condition of the at- 
mosphere, which produces a thrilling sense of 
exiiilaration in man and beast. 

The northers contin e without abatement 
from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and 
then gradually subside in from twelve to eight- 
teen hours more. The cold which attends, 
them is variable, often not frei^zing at all, and 
then again sinking the mercury down ta 
twenty or even lower. In one instance, at 
Austin, the temperature sank to six degrees 
above zero, but this would hardly occur twice 
in a lifetime. 

Tiiese (by northers are con-iidered, and no 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES 



47 



doubt are, very healthy winds. They free 
the air of every miasmatic influence, (it" such 
exist) and produce a delightful exhilaration, 
prompting to active muscular exertion in both 
man and beast. 

Consumption never originates in the area of 
the norther, and persons already afflicted with 
that disease are always benetitted, and often 
radically cured, by leading a wild, roving, 
<')pen-aiT life, in the country where they are 
most prevalent. 

RAINFALL. 

As will readily appear from a consideration 
of the facts stated in that portion of this 
itrticle relating to the Climate of Texas, the 
rainfall decreases in extent as you progress 
^\ est of the 97th meridian, for the reason as 
Iherein stated, that the prevailing winds, 
which are southerly beyond that parallel, 
blow over a vast extent of elevated arid 
-country in Mexico, and are thereby robbed of 
their moisture. But the prevailing opinion 
that Texas, even as far west as the 100th 
meridian, is subject to drouths that unfit it 
for an agricultural country, is not borne out 
"by the facts. A few years ago the new-comer 
was told that it never rained west of the 
Colorado River, and that farming w ould not 
pay west of the Brazos. Now, all the counties 
between the Colorado and San Antonio are 
devoted to agriculture, and the dry belt is 
moved west of the latter place. It will soon 
have to be moved farther west. The Castro- 
ville colony, on the Medina and Hondo, and 
the pioneer settlement at D'Hanis, have been 
farming for the last thirty years, and a more 
prosperous community it would be difficult to 
find in Texas or any where else. The north- 
western portion of Atascosa county is largely 
devoted to farming; the Germans in Kendall 
and Gillespie coundes are successful farmers 
— and BOW comes the report of fine crops in 
Dimmit county, bordering on the Rio Grande. 
These locatities are not specially favored as to 
soil or rain, but the people have some knowl- 
edge of agriculture, and are willing to expend 
a little manual labor in its pursuit. There is 
probably not an equal extent of country in 
the United States to that of West Texas, that 
has so large a per cent, of tillable land. 

The reason why farming has not been car- 
ried on to a greater extent is that stock-raising, 
an easier occupation, has paid so well hereto- 
fore that few could be found that would fol- 
low the more arduous life of a tiller of the soil ; 
but for the last few years farming has been 
largely on the increase. Many men have fol- 
lowed farming for years, and have made money. 
Appended is a letter from Mr. W. J. Locke, 
which explains itself and goes far to explode 
the idea that farming will" not pay in West 
Texas : 

" Olmos Creek, Bexar County, | 
Texas, July 19, 1880. f 

' ' In accordance w ith your request I give 
you a few items with regard to farming in 
West Texas. I am a native of Illinois, and 
came to Texas twenty-seven years ago, and 
my first experience in farming was in this 
•.(Bexar) county in 1857. Owing to a late frost 



and drouth our crops were a failure. From 
that time until the present we have not had an 
entire failure. Some years our crops were 
light and others very good. In 1872 i made 
sixty bushels of corn per acre on land that 
had been in corn fifteci years in succession, 
without any fertilizing whatever. In 1873 I 
made but thirty bushels per acre; the differ- 
ence was owing to the season. Our soil is 
very rich — capable of producing one hundred 
bushels per acre. My first experience in rais- 
ing small grain in this country was in 1874, 
when I made seventy bushels of oats per acre. 
In 1878 my sons made over one thousand bush- 
els of oats on ten acres of land. Our soil is a 
black loam, over four feet deep. The wheat 
crop of my neighbor, Mr. James H. Coker, 
for the years from 1873 to 1878 yielded from 
twenty to twenty-two bushels per acre. He 
planted cotton one year and gathered one bale 
per acre, but discontinued the cultivation of 
cotton, preferring to raise grain. In 1872 the 
late Mr. Albert Stowe, twelve miles northeast 
of San Antonio, told me that he made sixty- 
one bushels of corn to the acre. In 1876 the 
corn crop of my neighbor. Mr. Anton Horn, 
averaged forty-seven bushels per acre, and the 
only plowing it received was but two furrows 
in the row when the corn was knee high. The 
present year crops in many localities are light, 
owing to the hard frost in March and partial 
showers since. I believe that farming pays 
better here than in my native State, and during 
a decade we will make as much grain per acre, 
which commands a better price here than 
there. ''W.J.Locke." 

Mr. Locke is but one of the many, and he 
admits that his cultivation of the soil is not 
nearly as thorough as is necessaiy in Illinois. 
The employment of manures for general fer- 
tilizing is unknown, and there are lands near 
San Antonio that have been under cultivation 
for over 150 years. West Texas has a great 
variety of soils, from the heavy black-waxy 
lands, that are fairly greasy with richness, to 
the light sands, so easy of cultivation that a 
forked stick is often made to do the duty of a 
plow. There are very few farms in thfs sec- 
tion where improved machinery is in use, and, 
in fact, the only one that comes to the mind of 
the writer is the Capote farm, on the Guada- 
lupe River, fifteen miles below Seguin. This 
farm is under the management of Major Alex. 
Moore, and is a marvel to all the country round. 
This is only the second year under the present 
management, but the success of modern farm- 
ing is fully admitted by all who visit this place, 
and they are many. Major Moore has under 
cultivation this year nearly 2,000 acres. His 
crops of oats, wheat, rye, barley and several 
other cereals, and grasses and corn, have been 
fully up to his expectations. He plows deep 
and cultivates thoroughly, and is correspond- 
inly rewarded. The Capote farm has been in 
cultivation for many years, but heretofore has 
usually been an elephant on the hands of its 
owners. The failures in a series of farming 
experience can always be traced to the man- 
ner in which it was carried on, and not to 
natural causes. With the same amount of in- 



48 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



telligeiice and industry that is necessary to 
make botii ends meet in any of the Northern 
States, a man can win from the soil a com- 
petency in this. 

The recuperative powers in this country 
are most wonderful, and its power of endur- 
ance equally astonishing. The soil is so por- 
ous that, once saturated with a good rain in 
llie early spring, it will mature small grain. 
One good rain in May and June assures a corn 
crop, and cotlon will languish with limp and 
shrivelled leaves for months, and, on a good 
rain, make a good crop. Sometimes there is 
not a good frost to freeze ice for several years, 
and seldom later than the 1st February, or 
earlier than the 1st December. Many crops 
that are grown in the Northern States in the 
summer grow best here in the winter. No 
liay need be put up for general stock cattle, 
as there is always enough grazing for them the 
year round, and but little is needed for work 
stock; and, in fact, many of our so-called 
farmers feed nothing to their work stock from 
one year's end to another, obliging it to hunt 
its own living. 

It is a well-known fact, which has been de- 
monstrated in this and the northwestern States, 
that, as the country becomes settled, the ground 
broken up and trees growing, the rainfall is 
more frequent and more evenly distributed. 
That has been especially the case in Kansas 
and this State. In 1866 little or no farming 
was done west of the Neosho River, but now, 
some of the finest and most prosperous farm- 
ing communities in that State are located west 
of that River, and the rainfall is becoming 
m.ore regular every year. The same is true 
here. Thirty years ago that section of country 
between the Colorado and San Antonio was 
considered worthless for farming purposes, on 
account of the uncertainty of rain ; now it is 
one of the most prosperous in Texas. In this 
country particularly there has been a great 
change going on in regard to vegetation and 
the relative humidity. Thirty years ago all 
that country lying between the Colorado and 
the Rio Grande w^as a bare, open prairie, like 
that of Western Kansas, and but little timber 
was found skirting the streams ; now the whole 
face of the country is covered with the rapid- 
growing mesquite tree, which not only fur- 
nishes firewood, but a more durable fencing 
material than the red cedar, while the growth 
of timber has great influence on the rainfall, 
making it more copious and frequent. Thus 
nature, in its incomprehensible economy, is 
preparing the way for the increased popula- 
tion that is destined for this country. 

The following table of the rainfall in 
several of the principal points in this State 
and the United States, will prove that Texas 
is not the dry country that its enemies would 
have you believe, and it must be borne in 
mind, that the greater portion of the period 
of time that this represents we were suffering 
from an almost unprecedented drouth, which 
lasted till into tjbe early spring of 1880. 



RAINFALL IN TEXAS DURING YEAR ENDING 
JUNE 30, 1880. 
Locality. Inches. 

SanAulonio 3833 

Brownsville. 27.37 

Brackett 26.18 

Coleman City 89 38 

Concho 23.83 

Denison 50.19 

Eagle Pass 25,43 

Corsicana 4^.53 

Fort Griffin 37.96 

Laredo 20.88 

Mason 22.98 

Galveston 67.47 

Indianola 50.79 

AT OTHER POINTS IN THE UNITED STATES 
DURING SAME PERIOD. 
Locality. Inches. 

Breckeuridge, Minnesota 18.37 

Duluth, Minnesota 33.67 

St. Paul, Minnesota 23.44 

Cincinnati, Ohio 38.16 

Toledo, Ohio 34.66 

Cleveland, Ohio 37.13 

Sanduskj', Ohio 39.80 

Davenport, Iowa 33.86 

Dubuque, Iowa 37.05 

Grand Haven. Michigan 34,29 

Detroit, Michigan 36.71 

Port Huron, Michigan 31.20 

Denver, Colorado 12.81 

Chevenne. Wyoming 13.50 

Salt Lake, Utah 18.30 

Omaha, Nebraska 38.08 

North Platte, Nebraska 28.77 

Los Angelos. Cal 21.26 

Sacramento, Cal 24.86 

San Francisco, Cal 35.18 

San Diego, Cal 16.10 

Philadelphia, Penn , 39.39 

Pittsburg, Penn 32.53 

New London, Conn 36.14 

Indianapolis, Ind 36.38 

La Crosse, Wis 33.29 

Albany, New York 44.59 

Chicago, 111 45.03 

St. Louis, Missouri 41.68 

Buffalo, New York 42.27 

Bismarck, Dakota 18.3T 

Dodge City, Kansas 24.87 

Leavenworth, Kansas 41.07 

Boise City, Idaho 11.57 

By comparison you will see that the average 
rainfall in Texas is fully up to that of many 
of the great grain-growing States of the Union. 
There were only seven points in the United 
States where the rainfall was greater than at 
San Antonio, and Galveston had 67.47 inches 
— the greatest of all the points named. 

Below is a table giving the mean tempera- 
ture and rainfall for "each month of this year, 
up to the 14th of August, during which there 
is a heavy rain-storm in progress : 



Months. 



January 

February 

March 

April 

May .. 

June 

July 

To Au«u6t 14. 

Total. 



Rainfall- 
Inches. 



Mean 
Tem. 



3.48 
4 01 

2 42 

3 94 
3 04 
2.26 
6.30 
2.78 



62.4 
567 
61.6 
71 9 
77.8 
83 5 
83.0 



28.23 



70.9 



Tims you will see that the rainfall for the- 
first seven montks of this year has been great- 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



49 



er than the rainfall for a whole year in eigiit 
of the States quoted in the first table, and if 
the same rate continues to the end of the year, 
the rainfall will be over forty -eight inches. 
The richness of our soil is admitted by all who 
see it, and now it is proven that as much rain 
falls here as in the average of the States in the 
Union. The market is always good and will 
so continue for years and years to come; and 
what more is needed to make this a farming 
country but men who know how to farm and 
are willing to work ? 

So much for the charge that Western Texas 
is not suitable fbr an agricultural country, on 
account of the excessive drouths. It is not 
denied by any one, that there is an ample rain- 
fall all over that portion of the State east of 
the meridian of Austin, and, as finally dis- 
posing of this article, we append herewith the 
following tables. We regret that the means 
are not at hand to bring both of these tables 
down to date, but they will at least convince 
any one that Western Texas is not the "rain- 
less region" that some have pictured it. 

RAIN AND TEMPERATURE. 

Record at Austin, by D. W. C. Baker, for Twenty- 
three Years. 



I shower was in August, 1860, when seven 
inches fell in four hours. 

Eighteen hundred and seventy-nine was 
probably the driest year ever known in Texas 
since its white settlement; yet in most parts 
of the State there was a fair crop of small 
grain, and the cotton crop was good, although 
the year 1878 tvas also a dry year. 

The highest range of thermometer during- 
the twenty-three years has been in July, 1860, 
107°. The lowest range was in January, 
1804, ii^ above zero. 





Inches of 
Rain. 


Years. 


Temperature. 


Years. 


fl 


r^ 


1857 


20 00 

36.37 

30.24 

2961 

29. «9 

23.17 

33.85 

25.16 

38.40 - 

41.95 

27.19 

40 09 

38.54 

41.23 

29.21 

29.81 

44.94 

48.79 

30.70 

39.96 

42.12 

21.56 

18.34 

26.21 


1857-58 
1858-59 
1859-60 
1860-61 
1861-62 
1862-63 
1863-64 
1864-63 
1365-66 
1866-67 
1867-68 
1868-69 
1869-70 
1870-71 
1871-72 
■•872-73 
1873-74 
1874-75 
1875-76 
1876-77 
1877-78 
1878-79 
1879-80 


98 

101 

107 

100 

101 

99 

99 

106 

96 

98 

96 

97 

96 

102 

99 

96 

104 

99 

103 

97 

96 

100 

94 


22 


1858 


10 


1859 


18 


1860 

1861 

1862 


23 
23 

17 


1863 

1864 

1865 

1866 

1867 


6 
18 
21 
17 
15 


1868 ; 

1869 


19 


1870 

1871 


22 

l.j 


1872 


13 


1873 


38 


1874 


10 


1875 

1876 

1877 

1878 

1879 


28 
20 
23 
16 
32 


1880 






■ 


Total for 23 years. . . 


774.83 





Average annual rainfall, 33.69 inches. 

Note.— Temperature is for years beginning August 1. 
Average temperatn-e at Austin, the past twenty-three 
years, nas been 67.84. 

REMARKS. 

There has been a steady increase in the 
annual rainfall at Austin, as is shown by 
taking periods of five years, viz. : 

^ Inches. 

Average annual fall, 5 vears, beginning August 1, '57 31.49 

'62.. ..32.13 

'67 37.49 

'72 38.31 

The greatest amount of rain which has 
fallen in any one month during above period 
of twenty-three years, was in September, 
1874, inches 13.84. The greatest in any one 



a) 


1 


2.84 
3.25 
4 62 
1.62 
.53 
2 59 
2.50 

2 46 
6 87 

.33 

3 96 
7.86 


i 


j3 ISfeS^SSSggSgS 

00 1 (N r^ O i-H to 00 ■<9' ^ TT r-( rj> >-H 


3 


< 

a 




o 




RAINFALL AT MY RESIDENCES IN GRIMES COUNT 

ten miles east of south, the other fourteen miles west of sout 
e last sixteen years. 


X <N Oi ■«*' (N 1-1 ■«* C< O CO C» 1 r- 

1-H 1 1 CO 


2 jSgSSSggco^g^S ^ 
w 1 Tp ■<*' w (N ^ eci?j in c^ o ec tj< 


1868. 

1.73 
4.40 
5 92 
4 38 
1.53 
1.03 
4 64 
3.29 
1.63 
2 28 
9 39 
8.06 

49 28 


1866. |1867. 

2.40 1.02 
6.70 1.55 

.50 2.22 
5.48 5 35 
4.45 6.75 
2 60 5 20 
4.45 4.79 
4 48 8 02 
4.93 2 82 

.20 5.86 
5.45 3.15 
2 08 1.26 

43 92 4.5799 


1865. 

~4T88 
7.03 
6.94 
3.62 
1.83 
4.86 
1.13 
1.00 
.95 
2.17 
1.53 
1.16 

37.15 


2 |g^^::gg^g£3g«^^ ^ 

oo 1 ■ ei CO in CN 3-. in oj c} »n lo -"i^ x 


00 1 s> o> ■<*< ,-; eo so ■ 1-; I- c< r-( <N 1 ij 


1 


t:a2ggS8§Bgr^§Sg 


^ 


N^incoi-i-^ oor-i-^eo 


CO 


X j<ceO'r-;-»c»to^8.--r-.co 'o 1^ 




0^2 


p ^Sg^5o^^?iS?^Sg IS 
X (N "(rjwoitoi-i'eoocoT-ioj |^ 




1 
1 


5 (u « D.W c s 3 oT" ® ^ 





^ e- 



LENGTH OF SEASONS. 
There is no appreciable ditference between 
this country and the Southern States of the 
Union generally in the length of seasons. 
Spring commences about the middle of Feb- 
ruary, and planting is begun in February and 
March. The warm weather sets in about the 
first of June, and continues till about the first 
of October. September, October, November 
and December are the great "cotton-picking" 
months, and it is hard to find more delightful 
weather anywhere in the world than an aver- 
age November or December day in Texas. 
The air is cool and balmy, and all nature 
wears a peculiar aspect of calmness and rest, 
which is most delightful to the senses. The 
advent of wiatry weather rarely occurs before 



50 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



the last week in December, but at no time is 
it cold enough to discontinue work out of 
doors. With the exception of an occasional 
rain)^ day or "norther," the industrious farm- 
I er can find no reasonable excuse during the 
entire year to keep "his hands from the 
plow," or some other useful implement. The 
renting time is when the corn and cotton are 
laid by, the wheat, oats and other small grain 
harvested, and the sweet south breezes breatli- 
ing over a sea of grassy prairie, invite to a 
siesta and day dreams under the shadow of 
the wide piazza. 

WATER SUPPLY AND QUALITY. 

' The watercourses of Texas are numerous, 
but while the principal streams are of great 
length, they are not navigable to any consid- 
erable extent. But the supply of water for 
all domestic and farm purposes is quite suffi- 
cient for the wants of any increase of popula- 
tion. Id all the eastern, northern, middle and 
southern portions of the State, good wells are 
obtainable at very moderate depths, and the 
water is wholesome and pure. Springs and 
rivulets of bright, clear sparkling water are 
especially noticeable in the cretaceous region 
west of the Brazos River. After passing the 
tooth degree of longitude, going west, sur- 
face water becomes scarce, but even here a 
good supply can be obtained by digging al- 1 
most anywhere at moderate depths, and a I 
sufficiency for stock purposes is easily obtain- 
ed by constructing inexpensive "tanks" or 
reservoirs to catch the winter rains. 

Cistern water is used very extensively in 
the towns and cities of Western and Middle 
Texas, many persons preferring rain-water to 
the natural supply, which in the cretaceous 
region is more or less impregnated with lime. 
Besides there is a common opinion that rain- 
water is more healthy than any other kind. 
This may or may not be true, but certainly 
there are no healthier people in the world 
than those inhabiting the rural districts of 
Western Texas, and these depend in the main 
upon the natural supply. 

HEALTHFULNESS. 

It may be safely said that the people of no 
country enjoy a higher standard of general 
health than Texas. We have not at hand any 
reliable vital statistics, but the United States 
census for 1880 will soon be accessible, and 
that may be consulted in verification of the 
above statement. 

It is true that in the timbered jwrtions of 
Eastern and Southeastern Texas, along the 
river bottoms, malarial diseases of a mild type 
are sometimes prevalent in the latter part of 
the summer, and these are very distressing to 
persons from a northern climate, especially the 
first season; but these complaints yield readi- 
ly to treatment, and they can be altogether 
avoided by the judicious selection of a living 
locality unexposed to miasmatic influences. 
The house of the immigrant should never be 
lecated in a bottom, but on a hill, and if pos- 
sible, with any creek or river on the north 
side, as the prevailing winds in summer here 
are from the south. The greater portions of 



Texas however, notably of Central and West- 
ern Texas, are as free from malaria! influences 
as any part of the world. 

Bilious and intermittent fevers, and fever 
and ague may be expected in heavily-timbered 
river and creek bottoms in the hot months, 
but these can be easily avoided by proper pre- 
cautions, and the danger of them need not be 
encountered at all. 

Consumption, that dreaded and fatal dis- 
ease of northern climates, never originates in 
Texas, and manj'- who have come here pre- 
disposed to, or suffering with mcipient con- 
ditions of consumption, are entirely restored 
to health, and live out their natural lives. 
Diphtheria, another scourge of northern cli- 
mates, is, we believe, unknown in Texas. 

Winter and typhoid fevers are very rare, 
and never prevail as epidemics, and the cases 
that do occasionally occur do not prove of the 
stubborn and protracted character that at- 
tends them in the older States Endemical 
diseases are few, and in general they are easily 
and quickly subdued. 

Yellow fever has not prevailed, even in the 
coast cities for many years, and it is believed 
that the rigid system of quarantine now 
adopted will effectually exclude that disease 
for all time to come. 

MEDICAL OPINION. 

The following extracts are made from a 
paper read at the Ninth Annual Session of 
the Texas State Medical Association, by Dr. 
J. B. Robertson, one of the oldest and most 
highly esteemed physicians of the State: 

"That portion of West and Southwest 
Texas lying west of the 98th meridian of lon- 
gitude, and north of the 29th degree of lati- 
tude, has an elevation above the sea, begin- 
ning fifty miles south of San Antonio, of 500 
feet, and"^ gradually rising, as the line is traced 
north, to 2,000 feet. This region is drained 
by the following rivers and their" numerous 
tributaries: Brazos, Colorado, Guadalupe, San 
Antonio, Nueces and Rio Grande, all of which 
find their outlets into the Gulf of Mexico. 
The rapidly decreasing elevation of the coun 
try through which these streams pass in theii- 
course to the sea. secures to the section named 
the most perfect and thorough drainage In 
addition to this fact, this vast area of terri 
tory is entirely free from ponds, marshes, 
lakes or stagnant bodies of water, to disturb, 
with their contaminating effluvia, the purity 
of the atmosphere. Here are also found the 
principal mountain ranges, of which the 
Guadalupe is the largest and has the greatest 
elevation. These mountains, with their inter- 
vening valleys and plains, with their springs 
of pure and limpid water, which for beauty 
and picturesqueness, are rarely equalled and 
never surpassed, are beginning to attract the 
attention of the professional man in search of 
a locality for the climatic treatment of dis- 
eases of the respiratory organs, especially 
phthisis. 

" It is a source of much regret that 1 have 
not been able to get satisfactory reports of the 
range of the thermometer and the barometer, 
Willi the humidity of the atmosphere. I an) 



TEXAS HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



51 



only able to give the mean temperature for 
the seasons and year (means obtained from 
six years' observation at San Antonio ending 
with the year 1875, which is, Spring, 69.94'^; 
Summer, 85.56^; Autumn, 08.95''; Winter, 
52.94^: for the year, 08.85^. The mean aver 
age rainfall for the same period was 36.90 
inches. For these figures I am indebted to 
Dr. Fred. Peterson, of San Antonio. 

" The pressure of vapor, its weight, the ab- 
solute humidity, have, as far as I know, never 
been measured, but the observations of daily 
life, by all who have lived in any pp.rt of this 
section, or travelled through it, concur in at- 
testing the astonishing rapidity with which 
the roads dry after a fall of rain, and the per- 
fect preservation of meats for days, hanging 
in the open air, indicating unmistakably a 
small amount of moisture suspended in the air, 

" That eminent English author, Dr. James 
Henry Bennett, in the second edition of his 
valuable work on the ' Treatment of Pulmon- 
ary Consumption by Hygiene, Climate and 
Medicine, in its connection with Modern Doc- 
trines," after demonstrating the error of send- 
ing consumptive patients to all the points, 
both in Europe and America, that have been 
selected, and are now being used for the cli- 
matic treatment of consumption, concludes 
thus: * We are always, however, at a loss to 
find a cool summer residence in the States, 
where the minimum in July and August would 
be between 50^* and 60^ Fahr. , and the maxi- 
mum between 60*^ and 70^. I wish, therefore, 
my American colleagues would try to find out 
?^ome such locality in their mountain ranges 
at an accessible distance from New York.' 

"While the range of the thermometer in the 
region here treated of, as far as record has 
been kept, is higher than that indicated by 
this experienced author, the known drvness 
or' the air, together with the cool and refresh- 
ing breeze, which is universally prevalent, 
may more than compensate the consumptive 
patient for the difference in the range of the 
thermometer. The beneficial effects of the 
tlimate, in the area treated of, is not simply a 
matter of opinion on the part of the writer 
on purely theoretical grounds. During a 
practice of over thirty years in Central Texas, 
he has seen many patients sent there with 
clearly marked indications of consumption, 
and at a time in the history of the country 
when such patients had to rely almost entirely 
upon the climate for the benefit they received. 
In all cases the change gave marked relief, 
with, he believes, a prolongation of life for 
years with some, and a perfect cure with 
others. " 

Those invalids coming to Texas, who have 
sufficient vitality to endure an active life, 
would do well to prepare themselves for camp- 
ing out, provide ample means for fishing and 
s»hooting, and start for the rarer and drier 
atmosphere of tlie mountainous regions of 
Western Texas. 

To those who have a taste for these sports 
this will be very pleasant; and for invalids 
notl ing is more conducive to their health and 
good digestion, than the appetite born of 



exercise in the open air, and the game with 
which they satisfy it. All physicians advise 
invalids coming to Texas to take plenty of 
out-door exercise. No evil consequences 
result from sleeping in the open air. Tl^^ 
more the invalid can live out of doors th^^ 
better the chance for his re(;overy. 

ADVICE TO IMMIGRANTS. 

Many immigrants go astray, and suffer 
much loss and many disheartening experiencs, 
for the want of intelligent thought and pru- 
dent foresight, before starting out. 

WHO SHOULD GO TO TKXAS. 

1. Those who wish to engage in agricultu- 
ral pursuits. 

2. Those who wish to engage in manufac- 
turing enterprises. 

3. Those who wish to engage in stock-rais- 
ing. 

4. Those who seek a field for the profitabh; 
investment of capital. 

Under the first heading are included those 
who wish to hire out as farm hands, those, 
who wish to rent lands, and those who wish 
to become owners of farms. The demand for 
farm hands is great, and the wages paid are 
fair. For a young man who is entirely desti- 
tute of capital, it fs a good idea to work on a 
farm for one year. By so doing, he will gain 
a valuable experience and make some money, 
and if he is industrious and worthy, can easily 
rent or buy land for himself for the next year. 

The difference in favor of settling in 'i'exas, 
as compared with the older States, consists m 
the fact that the poor man can succeed in es- 
tablishing himself in a home of his own here 
more easily than elsewhere. 

WHEN TO GO TO TEXAS. 

Going early in the year will give the immi- 
grant time to look about and locate himself 
advantageously, to buy or renf land, and in 
case of purchase, to clear and fence his land, 
build his house, break his laud, and be in readi- 
ness to plant in time to make a crop. Ar- 
rangements for renting land are usually made 
in December, and renters generally take pos 
session of their land by or before Christmas, 
but lands can be rented as late as April. 

Immigi-ants from the Northern States should 
not forget that they are going South, not 
West, and that the climate and seasons for 
sowing and reaping are much sooner than 
they have been accustomed to, therefore they 
should stait in the late summer or early 
autumn. The preparation of lands for seed 
ing of wheat, and the harvesting the cotton 
crop always causes an active demand for 
labor, when immigrants can obtain immedial-: 
employment at remunerative prices, and ;i. 
the same time secure suitable employment f<;;" 
the coming year. The best places aie mo- i 
frequently engaged in the fall, both in the 
renting of lands or as laborers. So great, 
however, is the demand for good ana reliabh; 
labor, there is no season when employment 
cannot be obtained. 

The constant development in all depart- 
ments of life which are going on in the State., 



52 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



assures the patient and industrious immigrant 
a certainty of remunerative employment, ex- 
tending the season for immigration to the 
whole year. 

^ WHERE TO GO IN TEXAS. 

This is a question each immigrant will de- 
cide for himself. The pursuit he chooses to 
follow and his individual taste, will direct 
him to select that place for a home which 
offers the best prospects of success, and would 
be most agreeable to himself and family. It 
is best to seek information from reliable and 
trustworthy sources, by specific inquiries in 
relation to the business in which you propose 
to engage. The Southwestern Immigration 
Company has no other interest to serve than 
to people the country, by exhibiting its re- 
sources and advantages, and will be impartial 
as to localities. It will advocate no special 
sections, but its agents will be instructed and 
enjoined to furnish truthful information of 
all locations of which they are inquired. Hav- 
ing obtained correct information from them, 
and such other sources as are at command, 
proper and suitable selections can be made 
without much difficulty. 

HOW TO GO TO TEXAS. 

This will be determined from the immi- 
grant's location and circumstances. Rates of 
passage over the routes of travel vary so fre- 
qutintly, that a list of rates given now would 
be incorrect in a few weeks. This company 
contemplates making arrangements, and the 
work is now under progress, of perfecting a 
system of rates over the important trunk lines 
of railroads and water routes, both by river 
and ocean, which it hopes will be uniform 
and cheap. An effort will be made to estab- 
lish low rates from all important points on 
railroads in the United States, and from the 
principal shipping cities of €rreat Britain and 
Continental Europe directly to the Southwest. 
For the present, the immigrant can learn from 
the nearest station-agent, the rates to any given 
point in Texas as now charged. It is also 
contemplated to make arrangements for the 
transportation of the household effects, tools, 
and implements of immigrants at the lowest 
class freight rates. As to routes of travel, the 
Southwestern Immigration Company will 
strive to be wholly impartial, seeking at all 
limes to secure the most accomodating terms 
tor the immigrants. 

In advising immigrants how to come to 
Texas, the plan of coming by land, with their 
wagons, teams, and some of their best stock, 
is recommended for their careful considera- 
tion. It is true, as a rule, that a family in sell- 
ing off everything, preparatory to moving to 
a new country by rail or water transporta- 
tion, sacrifices much in the low rate at which 
the property sells. This is especially true of 
horses and cattle, V)()th of which they must 
have in their new home. 

The autumns in Texas, from September to 
December, are generally mild and pleasant, 
and a family properly equipped for travelling 
with wagon, ambulance, or carriage, which 
can be purchased at slight cost, will be enabled 



to travel with ease and comfort many hundred 
miles; bring with them as much of the home 
stock, including the work horses and mules, 
as they see proper; purchase on the way 
forage and subsistence at a very small outlay 
in money, and by this course can reach their 
new home with these ready for use. If they 
have, after getting here, a surplus horse, 
mule, wagon, carriage, or ambulance, it can 
readily be sold in any neighborhood for a fair 
price. A pair of horses or mules will bring 
a year's supply of provisions, or make an im- 
portant payment on a tract of land, should 
they conclude to buy. Brood mares and colts, 
as well as half or full bred cattle, command a 
good price in all parts of Texas. While this 
would be a slow way to travel, its advantages 
over that of coming quicker by rail, after 
arrival of the family here, would be in having 
the necessary stock for farming or other pur- 
poses, as required, instead of having them to 
purchase. 

RENTING LANDS. 

There is a large amount of land for rent 
each year on the most favorable terms. 
Where the landlord furnishes the land and 
improvements only, and the tenant the team, 
tools and provisions, the landlord receives 
from one-fourth to one-third of the crop, and 
the tenant has the remainder. Where the land- 
lord furnishes everything necessary to the 
making of the crop, except the provisions for 
the family of the tenant, the crop is usually 
divided equally between the parties. The 
two systems of leasing offer industrious poor 
men, and especially Those with considerable 
families, golden opportunities to become 
independent, and the owners of farms at an 
early day. Thousands of men in Texas, who 
are to-day independent and the owners of 
fine farms, made the first step towards suc- 
cess by renting land in the manner described, 
and many of them purchased farms with the 
profits of a single year's lease. Of course it 
is more profitable for a man to buy land 
and improve and work his own farm, if he luis 
the means to do so, but for those who are desti- 
tute of capital, and are possessed of industry 
and some knowledge of farming, the system 
of renting land for a share of the crop cannot 
be too highl}' recommended. 

When the immigrant has got to Texas, he 
will, of course, first seek to erect a shelter for 
himself and famil}'. The climate is such that 
a very cheap structure will be found perfectly 
comfortable, until time and means afford the 
opportunit}' for greater convenience and ele- 
gance. 

THE COST OF MAKING A HOMESTEAD. 

We assume, as an average, that the immi- 
grant's family consists of himself wife, and 
three children, two of whom are over tive 
years of age, and one under; and that riu' 
railroad fare is $32, and while to some points 
it is less than this, to othf^rs it is more. This 
would call for — 

Three tickets at $32 $96 00 

Lunches and incidental;? 2.5 00 

Total cost of taking a familj- of two 

adults and three childrcQtoTexas. . $121 00 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



53 



House. — Cost of constructing a house of two 
rooms and shed: 

Lumber $100 00 

Nails 5 00 

Saah 10 00 

Doors 6 OO 

Extra labor 50 00 



Total cost of house • . . f 171 00 

Agricultural Implements : 

Plough SIO 00 

Hoes and other implements 10 00 

Total cost of implements $20 00 

Animals, Etc. : 

One yoke of oxen , $40 00 

One horse 25 00 

Saddle, etc 10 00 

Six chickens 1 25 

Pair of swine 5 00 

One cow 12 00 

Total cost of animals $93 25 

Fencing, sa}' 40 acres $200 00 

Provisions, for one year $150 00 

Recafitulation, showing the cost of moving 
to Texas, establishing a homestead tliere, 
and living until the first year's crop is made : 

Passage $12100 

Building house 171 00 

Agricultural implements 20 00 

Animals 93 25 

Fencing 200 00 

Provisions for one year 150 00 

Total cost $755 25 

Of course, a man with pluck and energy can 
.start life in Texas on a smaller sum, but this, 
with ordinary prudence and industry, will 
make success certain. 

This calculation is on the supposition that 

the chosen location is on the prairie. Of course 

in the timber, where the immigrant cuts his 

own logs and buys no lumber for fencing, the 

expenditure of ready money is much less. 

GENERAL INFORMATION, 

INTERESTING TO ALL WHO MAY THINK 

OF GOING TO TEXAS OR BUYING 

LANDS THERE. 

WAGES AVERAGE ABOUT AS FOLLOWS : 

Blacksmiths, per day $2 00 to $3 00 

Bricklayers, " 2 00 to 3 00 

Stone Masons, " 2 00 to 3 00 

Carpenters, '' 2 00 to 3 00 

Plasterers, '• 2 00 to 3 00 

Painters, " 2 00 to 3 00 

Shoemakers, " 2 00 to 3 00 

Printers, '• 2 00 to 3 00 

Wagon Makers, " 2 00 to 3 00 

Tailors, '^ 2 00 to 3 00 

Harness Makers, " 2 00 to 3 00 

Farm Hands, per month, wfth board — 10 00 to 15 00 
Laborers in town, finding themselves, 

per day 1 00 to 125 

Laborers at saw mills, per month 20 00 to 35 00 

PRICES OF STOCK, TOOLS, PROVISIONS, ETC. 
Spanish ponies, broken and unbroken, 

sell at $10 00to$30 00 

Good,large American horses are worth. 75 00 to 100 00 

Mules, well broken 75 00 to 125 00 

Beef cattle. 3 to 5 years old, sell at.. . . 15 00 to 20 00 

Fat cows, for beef ... 15 00 to 18 00 

Milch cow and calf (young) 12 00 to 20 00 

-Choice beef is had in most Texas mar- 
kets at 4 to 8 cents per pound. 

Good clear bacon sides 9 to 15 " " 

Average price for corn, about 40 cents per bushel. 

oats, " 30 " 

Wheat sells according to quality, locality and facility 
for shipping, at 75 cents to $1.15 per bu»shel. 



Texas flour sells at $3.00 to $4.50 per hundred pounds' 

according to grade. 
Sweet potatoes, 30 to 50 cents; in winter and spring, 50 

cents to $1.00 per bushel. 

Irish potatoes 75 cts. to $1.50 per bushel. 

Pork 3 to b cts. per pound. 

Lard 9tol2»^ct8. '• i 

Butter. 15 to 30 cts. " 

Stock Hogs $1.50 to $3.00 each. 

Sheep 2.00 to $3.00 " 

Oxen $40.00 to $50.00 per yoke. 

Farming implements and machinery, groceries and 
provisions, are as cheap as in any Southern State. 

In dry goods there is but very little variation from the 
prices in Northern cities. 

Brick delivered, $6.00 to $10.00 per 1,000. 
LUMBER. — CAR LOAD RATES AT THE MILLS, 

DELIVERED ON CARS. 
Boxing, all lengths and breadths $ 8.00 to $10.00 per M. 

Fencing, 6 inch, 16 feet . 8.00 to 10.00 ' ' 

Framing, special order 10.00 to 12.00 " 

Lathing and rough edge 6.00 to 8.00 " 

Shingles, cypress 4.00 

pine 3.00 to 3.50 '■ 

Note. — West of Brazos River there is no pine timber, 
and lumber sells there at from $16.00 to $19.00 per M. 

WHAT CAN AN IMMiaRANT 
DO IN TEXAS? 

This is the first question that he will ask 
when contemplating removal from one coun- 
try to another. Texas, and especially West 
Texas, is as yet in its infancy, as far as devel- 
opment of its natural resources is concerned. 
Although many sections of it have been 
inhabited by the Spaniards and their descend- 
ants for nearly two hundred years, and the 
Americans for some forty or more years, there 
has been but little done to develop its natural 
resources. 

It is estimated that Texas, as a whole, is 
capable of supporting a population equally 
dense as that of the German empire, which, 
according to our area, would be over 35,000,- 
000 people. We have not yet 2,000,000, and 
Western Texas, in area greater than that of 
England, Scotland, Ireland, and several little 
kingdoms thrown in for good measure, has 
yet less than 250,000 people, cities and all. 

If an immigrant can make a bare living in 
the North, where it is winter from four to 
seven months, and where the cost of fuel 
would feed him in this section, can he not make 
a little better than a living here, where there 
is no winter, and it takes much less clothing 
and food, and allows a man more working 
days than in the North? The advice of one 
who has been in almost severy county and 
town of West Texas is : — If you want to work 
this is the place for you to come; but if on 
wish to make your living by your wits on 
had better stay where they can be better a re- 
ciated. 

There never was a country where lal is 
better remunerated, taking in the co( ot 
living, than in West Texas. For illustni i. 
we take a carpenter who is master of hi> 
trade; begets from $2.50 to $3.50 per day. 
There are very few days in a year that he 
cannot work in and out of doors, without fire 
or shelter; his Iiouse-rent costs him from $>< 
to $12 per month, and his fuel not more than 
$20 per year; his clothing and that of- his 
family fifty pfer cent, less than it does North ; 
and if he is sober he can not only make a 



£4 



TEXAS: HER KESOUr.CES AND CAPABILITIES. 



good living, but lay woniothiDg aside for the 
JbiOiir of sickness and old age. 

At the present time there is great need for 
fami labor, and a large amount of cotton will 
^o to waste if labor cannot be had from 
Abroad. Farm labor is always in demand, 
and land can always be had for rent, either 
on shares or money rent at very reasonable 
rates. As yet there is more land than labor 
in this country. You will be told, and by 
men here, that this is no place for a poor man, 
and the very men who tell you so, and who 
are now the possessors of thousands of dollars 
in lands and stock, came to this country so 
poor that they were glad to accept a dry crust 
from the table of a poor Mexican peon (slave). 
They were men of stern stuff, and stayed. 
Are you not equally brave in facing fickle 
fortune and winning from her a fortune and a 
position in society? Gold lies not loose upon 
the ground, but we have a rich soil that will 
produce abundant crops with less labor than 
any other portion of the Union. We have 
fine natural grapes; we have a climate the 
*;qual, if not the superior, to any in the world; 
we have a market for all the produce that can 
fee raised, and we have a hearty welcome for 
all who wish to make this their home, and 
become one of us; then, why ask what will an 
immigrant find to do in this country ? If he 
wishes to work he need not be idle a day. 
If he is a lawyer he had better stay away, we 
have too many already; if a doctor, he had 
better go to a coun*;ry where people get sick, 
this is too healthy, and we have to import 
invalids to keep alive the milk of human 
kindness; but if he is a mechanic, a farmer, 
or any other man with manual labor as his 
stock-in trade, this is the place for him — his 
•ommodity is in demand and will bring a 
lair price. 

TEXAS A WORKSHOP FOR 

MAN. 

From the overcrowded mills of New Eng- 
land; from the sturdy tillers of high-priced 
Western lands; from the dark and dreary 
mines of Pennsylvania; from the farmers, 
mechanics, mineis and artizans of this coun- 
try, and from the overworked and poorly fed 
millions of the old world, the cry is daily re- 
peated, "Where can we find relief? What 
country offers us a home with better oppor- 
t unities for an independent living?" This 
question, so pertinent and full of feeling, was 
answered by the Hon. Wm. W. Lang, in his 
eloqu(!nt oration before the Agricultural and 
Mechanical College of Texas. 

An eminent writer has said, " The earth is 
the ground floor, so to speak, of nature; the 
home, or rather the cradle of man and of na- 
tions — the dwelling place of our race. It is 
not merely a region of immense space — a vast 
superficies; it is the theatre where all the 
forces of nature and the laws of nature are 
displayed in their variety and independencies, 
licsides this, it is the field of all liunian effort, 
and the scene of a divine revelation !" In the 
view that it is the great workshop of nature, 
and the home of all natural elements and 



forces^ may be comprehended the Avholc body 
of the material sphere, but, as the home or 
cradle of man and the scene of human efforts, 
the limit must be ciicumscribed by the boun- 
daries of those portions that offer to the human 
family, by reason of natural resources, .soil, 
climate, atmosphere, vegetable and animal life, 
the best opportunities for rapid and continual 
advancement in power, in wealth, in civiliza- 
tion, m a ceaseless development of his powei 
of thought. Man by his very nature turns 
away from the glistening icebergs, the chilling 
blasts and rigorous seasons of a polar zone, 
where two-thirds of his life must be spent 
within the narrow limits of closely-built walls, 
and sustained by artificial means. He does 
not care to dwell under the burning rays of a 
tropical sun, and however rich the soil or 
exuberant the vegetation, he will not make 
his home where disease-engendering malaria, 
is the burden of every breeze, where listless 
torpidity seizes upon all his intellectual pow- 
ers. Nor will he rest upon the barren sands 
of a Sahara, though its sunlight be the bright- 
est, its atmosphere the purest. None of these 
portions of the globe offer a home to the 
Caucasian. But within the confines of this 
great State of Texas, with its incomparable 
climate and soil, adapted to the production of 
everything demanded by the necessities of the 
human race, with its mountains and hills 
ready to yield untold wealth to the industry 
of tlie miner, with its streams and rivers offer- 
ing him food and easy transportation to an 
extensive coast, with its valleys and almost 
boundless prairies of unsurpassed fertility and 
beauty, the very inspiration of health and 
energy — have we not all that any country can 
offer as a home to the human family ? 

There are in Texas no glistening icebergs, 
nor dreary winters holding the earth for 
months in their icy embrace — no season of 
cold and inclement weather, during which the 
farmer must consume in feeding and shelter- 
ing his perishing animals, all that food and all 
that profit for which he has toiled under the 
burning suns of July and August. The cli- 
mate of Texas is indeed incomparable. There 
is no extreme of cold to freeze and consume, 
nor of heat to enervate and destroy. The 
glorious configuration of her surface tempers 
the rigors of a northern winter, and the scorch 
ing heat of a torrid summer to a variety of 
weather conducive to health and vigor. Her 
sod is rich and fruitful, repaying the husband- 
man for his toil with great liberality in a series 
of crops whose diversity is without a parallel, 
and in this diversity there is a security, an in 
surance, so to speak, which no other portion 
of the world can offer. For if the tailing 
rains hurt the wheat harvest, they also give 
vigor and growtli to the young cotton plant. 

That which injures one crop, but makes the 
other more fruitful. Nature's great law of 
compensation is exemplitied. The diversified 
landscape contains valleys fit for a world's 
granary, and mountains like those of which 
the })rophet spoke when he said, "Out of 
whose hills thou mayest dig brass." Hidden 
beneath the fruitful soil is untold mineral 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



wealth. The husbandman and miner alike 
have their reward. Turn where we may up- 
on the broad domain of Texas, we find the 
elements of wealth and prosperity waiting the 
hand of industry to subdue and appl}" them to 
the uses of man. The means of comfort and 
competency are to be found eveiywhere. In- 
dustry will never fail to place its possessor in 
the honorable position of an independent and 
self-supportmg manhood. When the resources 
of Texas and her rapid increase in population 
are set before the thoughtful mind, an answer 
is sometimes returned, that "this is all well 
for the present generation, but that the next 
or at most thenext following that, will find 
itself suffering from the same evils of ex- 
hausted soil and over-crowded territory that 
oppress so many of the present generation." 
There are many farmers in the Eastern States 
pouring expensive fertilizers upon exhaustive 
lands that their grandfathers bought because 
of their great productiveness, in th'e hope that 
they would descend in undiminished vigor to 
their seed forever. The fathers who in earlj^ 
life emigrated to the prairies of Indiana and 
Illinois, now find scant opportunity for their 
sons among the high-priced lands of those 
States. May not they ask, and wisely ask, 
" Will not the same result follow the spring- 
tide of immigration which is now flowing over 
Texas ?" We think not. For Texas, sifuated 
as she is, so to speak, at the foot of the North 
American continent, is enriched with the 
washings of countless ages until her soil has 
u depth to which no other soil on the conti- 
nent extends. But the size of Texas precludes 
all fear of her being crowded for generations 
yet to come. The mere mention of square 
miles by the hundred thousand, and of acres 
by the hundred million, conveys but little idea 
of the magnitude of Texas, and her capacity 
for affording homes and profitable employ- 
ment to millions of people. On page five of 
this pamphlet, an effort was made to realize 
the vastness of Texas, by a comparison v/ith 
other States and other countries. We will 
endeavor to make some comparison between 
her capacity to produce and the world's con- 
sumption. 

For the cotton year ending September. 
:1879, the cotton crop of Texas was 951,003 
bales, and it was produced on 1,808,886 acres 
or 2,825 square miles of land, being a little 
less than the one-ninety-seventh ^jart of the 
entire area of the State. 

The entire cotton crop of the United States 
for the same year was 5,020,387 bales; it was 
produced on 12,595,510 acres of land. If we 
deduct this from the entire area of Texas, we 
shall find that Texas after producing the en- 
tire cotton crop of the United States, would 
have 162.992,330 acres left. 

The wheat crop of the United States was 
448,755,118 bushels, and it was produced on 
32,545,899 acres. If we assume that Texas 
has produced all this wheat, besides the cot- 
ton of the whole country, we shall have 130, 
446,431 acres left. 

The amount of corn produced in the whole 
United States was 1,544,809,193 bushels, and 



it was grown on 53,085,401 acres. If we take 
this from the acreage left after producing all 
the cotton and all the wheat of the country, 
we shall have left 77,361,030 acres— so that 
Texas could produce all the cotton, all tl)^||k 
wheat, and all the corn, the principal article^^ 
of bread and raiment used in the United States, 
and have more than 77,000,000 acres of land 
left. 

But little more than half the area of Texas 
would produce all the cotton, wheat and corn 
of the United States, while that which re- 
mains has timber to an incalculable amount, 
and pastoral ranges upon which millions of 
sheep could feed, and wool enough be pro- 
duced for a nation's clothing. Beneath the 
soil lies hid coal, iron, copper, and other 
minerals, enough to suppl}^ the whole United 
States. Should there be a famine in all the 
rest of the country, Texas could take upon 
herself the task of supplying the whole United 
States with bread and corn for food, and cot- 
ton and wool for raiment. 

But we may take a step farther, and we 
shall see that the world's consumption of cot- 
ton is about 12,000,000 bales, and that Texas 
has the capacity to produce ten times as much 
cotton as the whole world consumes.,,-; 

Competent statisticians state that the amount 
of land used in growing the nine principal 
crops of the United States, cotton, wheat, 
corn, oats, barley, hay, rye, potatoes, and 
buckwheat, is 223,763 square miles — so that 
Texas has land enough to raise all the nine 
principal crops of the United States, and have 
a garden plot of 50,000 square miles to spare. 
These simple calculations indicate the part 
which Texas is destined to take in the world's 
production. Her soil, enriched as we have 
seen, by the washings of a continent, cannot 
be exhausted, while generations must elapse 
before her boundless territory can be even 
moderately filled with people. Within her 
boundaries almost every production required 
for the use of man can be grown. The min- 
eral resources of the State are boundless in 
extent and wonderful in richness. All that 
tends to the comfort and happiness of man- 
kind, is found in abundance witliin her borders. 

A country with so many capabilities and 
such a variety of resources, will always afford 
a great multiplicity of occupations. No mili- 
tary servitude, taking the best years of youth- 
ful vigor and early manhood for the service 
of the State is exacted here, as is done in so 
many countries on the other side of the broad 
Atlantic. The government is managed on the 
economical principles of "pay as you go," and 
the State this year calls for no more than for- 
ty-five cents on the hundred dollars, while the 
county levy is but half that amount. Sixty- 
seven cents on the hundred dollars, all told, 
will surely satisfy the most clamorous advo- 
cate of cheap government. 

These are a few of the manifold attractions 
and advantages which makes " Texas the 
home and cradle of man," affording such 
splendid oi)portunities for rapid and continual 
advancement in ])ower, in wealth, in civiliza- 
tion, in a ceaseless development of the power 



56 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 






of thought, and which to the peoples of all 
climes and all nations, she offers in the lan- 
guage of the eloquent speaker before quoted, 
saying: "Come, take your places in the front 
k of those who, inspired by the heroic tra- 
ions of her past, and her grand future des- 
tiny, are now battling for the material pros- 
perity and progress of Texas, and cease not 
your efforts until you shall have adorned her 
vast continental area with a splendid agricul- 
ture established from border to border, lin^s 
of railroads, canals, and telegraphs; taken 
tribute from the rich deposits of lier mines 
and mineral lands ; built up her manufactories, 
her cities and towns, her public buildings, 
churches, and, above all, her school-houses. 
Provided with men true to her institutions, 
men capable of directing the construction and 
operation of her public works and of develop- 
ing her rich stores of latent material wealth, 
Texas will attain her proper degree of indus- 
trial prosperity, and become the admiration 
of the civilized world." 

THE WINTER AND THE CROPS. 

HOW THE "blizzards" OP THE NORTH- 
WEST HAVE EFFECTED WHEAT AND CATTLE — 
LESSONS FOR THE FARMEK. 

We copy the following graphic description of a 
" Northern " blizzard, from the correspondence 
of the Dubuque Herald : 

WisNER, Neb.. March 10, 1881. 

How shall 1 write of this timberless plain ? 
The past summer was one of suushine. The 
present winter has been one of tempest. 

Climate makes a country rich and prosperous, 
or it may make it a waste. The weather and 
climate are one. Men speak of the weather just 
in proportion as they love nature. A storm in 
the great Red River Valley is telegraphed to all 
sections ol the country. A heavy frost in Ken- 
lucky is known the next day in all parts of the 
world. The tobacco crop may have been threat- 
ened. The great plain prairie country west of the 
Missouri is subject to weather of violence, and in 
obedience to law. 

The blizzard is a fact, a terrible, perilous fact. 
Its merciless fury has not been confined to Neb- 
raska alone this winter, but the entire Northwest 
has felt its killing, devastating touch. As I write, 
human life is safe only within doors. During the 
blizzard of February 12, a near neighbor started 
lor his corral iH mid-afternoon ; at midnight he 
Ibuud himself knocking at the door of a distant 
dugout, still alive, but where he had wandered or 
been driven by the storm he could not tell. It 
was the 14th instant belore the fury of the storm so 
abated as to allow him to return to his home, to 
find one-half of his stock stiff In death. There 
must be a compensation somewhere that induces 
men to brave such danger. 

The government gives a man a home for plant- 
ing a few acres of trees; the State of Nebraska 
exempts property from taxation to encourage 
I'.irestry. You who dwell in cities and towns 
know nothing of the wonderful powers exerted 
by the wiuds upon the ti^reat plains. The chemist 
tells us that hot water under pressure is the most 
powerful of known solvents; so a snow-storm, 
driven by a fierce wind which has gathered moun 
tains in its flight ol hundreds of miles across a 
treeless plain, becomes a blizzard, before which 
human life is as a toy in the hands of an athlete. 

Nebraska is inferior to Iowa in all things that 



go to make up an agricultural State. Your cer- 
tain rainfall, timber and coal are all in all to a 
new State. Strange as it may appear, the Agri- 
cultural Department Report for 1878, phuH's 
Nebraska in the front rank as a corn-producing 
St;ite, John fhoenix's idea of happiness may be 
realized here — 

Cora in the big crib, money in the pocket. 
Baby in the cradle, and a pretty wife to rock it. 

Western Nebraska, like Western Kansas, may 
pioduce a crop once in a dozen years, and it may 
i.ot — the chances are too many iu favor of the 
bank for a man to risk even his pocket change in 
j theveuture. Ttie great and irrowing interest here is 
I ihe grazing business. Grass is abundant, water fairly 
! plenty iu running streams, and easily obtained 
i by diggnig, and everything seems to favor the 
j future of that busiuess, except the wintei- and the 
; blizzard. The present winter has demoostrattd 
! the more than folly of trying to winter stock iu 
this section outside of warm sheds or birns. Go 
I with me on a day's drive among my nei2;hbors Ion 
I point out to you the carcasses of cattle and sheep, 
i and hogs enough to have built a jj^ood barn for 
I every stock raiser iu the country. The interested 
[ pc.rty who represents that stock requires less 
; protection here than in Iowa is a falsifier, ''and 
I the truth is not in him." Be not misled, you who 
think of coming to Nebraska to engage in the 
stock business. Come with your eyes open, and 
remember first that cattle require as much care 
and protection here as in Northern Iowa or 
Mmuesota. The feeding season is as long, the 
winter more severe, and the weather fully as cold. 
A hundred miles west from here you reach the 
eastern boundary of the range where cattie some- 
times winter on buffalo grass. The present win- 
ter has been a wasting exception. Over all that 
vast range in Nebraska, Dakota, Colorado, Wy- 
oming and Montana, the grass it under snow and 
sleet, so deep that no bovine can reach it. He 
who counted last November -the cattle on a 
thousand hills as his," is shorn of his earthly 
possessions. The plains and the canyons are 
Bach in the bodies of the slain. 
The average loss attending this growing interest, 
always large, has never before taken capital, stock, 
increase and all. As a result, cattle must rule 
high for a few >ears to come. During the month, 
of January the mercury touched 40"^ below zero, 
and once iu February it reached 30"^ below. The 
cold has been steady and has held unbroken 
sway. 

The above is a gloomy and foreboding picture of 
a country which has been extolled as the very 
Arcadia for delightful and profitable homes. It 
has been truly stated that this has been an excep- 
tional cold winter, and the consequ^'nces have 
been much suffering in all the Northwest, attended 
with great loss of live stock, in some instances of 
human life, and also from a want of transporta- 
tion, all trains having been blockaded, week after 
week, by terriflic snow-storms, and even while 1 
write, March 28d, 1881, it is reported that another 
of those terrible storms is prevailing in the North- 
west to such an extent as to stop all trains. The 
fiuancial editor of the New York World says : 

"The most important news of the street to-day, 
I think, is the weather report from the West. 
More heavy snow is reported, and it is acknowl- 
edged now that the winter wheat crop is in a very 
bad way." 

While it is admitted that the winter has been 
uncommonly severe, it is no unusual circumstance 
for these blockades of trains to occur iu ordinal y 
mid-winter, and while all this suticring, incon 
venience and loss of property was occurring, iu 



TEXAS HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



57 



Texas the farmers were plouo;hing their lands 
and planting iheir seeds; and their flocks were 
making a good living upon ihe wild grasses of the 
prairies. At this writing the crops are planted, 
and all farming operations are far advanced — 
althoujfh this has been the severest winter linown 
in Texas, stock men assert that the losses lor the 
year ending first of March, 1881, will not ':;xceed 10 
per cent., and that their flocks have gone through 
the winter in good condition and healthy. 

RAILROADS IN TEXAS. 

Nothing connected with the material growth 
and prosperity of Texas presents so striking a 
picture as the history of tiie various railway 
enterprises constructed or projected withiu 
her borders. 

Each year leaves a record of still further 
development in internal improvement, the 
faith and energy displayed by both home and 
foreign capital showing the importance of 
Texas "among her progressive sister States, 
and arguing. well for the future. The large 
increase in our population during the past ten 
years, the numbers being nearly doubled, is 
to be accounted for in great degree by the 
completion of railroads through all eligible 
sections of the State. Thus we have been 
brought in connection with the outside world 
and have had the products of the manufactur- 
ing centres placed within easy grasp. The 
fertility of our soil and attractions of climate 
became known to capitalists and enterprising 
men looking for fresh and safe helds of in- 
vestment, and so shrewd were the calculations 
of these moneyed elements that immigration 
seemed to begin simultaneously with the lay- 
ing of the first rail. Towns sprang up as if 
by magic as roads were extended, and daily 
grew under the support of fast settling rural 
districts surrounding them. 

At the close of the war in 1865, there were 
but six railroads in Texas that had track laid 
in running order, viz: the Buffalo Bayou, 
Brazos & Colorado Radroad, from Harrisburg 
to Alleyton, eighty miles; the Houston & 
Texas Central R'\ilroad, from Houston to 
Millican, eighty miles; the Washington Coun- 
ty Railroad (now the Austin division of the 
Central), from Hempstead to Brenham, thirty 
miles; the Galveston, Houston & Henderson 
Railroad, from Galveston to Houston, fifty 
miles; the Texas and New Orleans Railroad, 
from Houston to Liberty, forty miles; and 
the Columbia & Brazos River Railroad, from 
Houston to Columbia, fifty miles — making a 
total of 330 miles of railroad in actual opera- 
tion fifteen years ago. The Southern Pacific 
Railroad (now the Texas & Pacific) was under 
operation from Shreveport, La., to the Texas 
line, but at that period had not penetrated the 
State. 

Now there are twenty-nine different lines of 
railroad in actual operation within the State, 
with a total mileage in running order of about 
forty five hundred miles, showing that since 
the year 1865 no less than forty-one hundred 
miles of railroad have been constructed and 
placed in running order. 

No other part of the world now witnesses 
•such pronounced activity in the construction 



of great lines of railway, as Texas. The eyes 
of the financial world are turned upon her, 
and schemes of gigantic magnitude are being 
consummated within her borders. What is^ 
popularly known as the "Gould Combia^^ 
tion," now controls the Missouri Pacific, tn^F 
Missouri Kansas & Texas, the Texas & Pa- 
cific, the St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern, 
and the International and Great Northern 
Railroads, witli their various branches and ad- 
juncts. The Missouri Pacific, from its terminal 
point on Texas soil, at Dennison, has extended 
its arms, one on the East, through the coun 
ties of Grayson, Farmin, Hunt and Raines, to 
a connection with tiie Texas & Pacific and 
the International & Great Northern Roads ai 
Mineola, in Wood county; the other on the 
West, through Denton and Fort Worth 
(where it crosses the Texas & Pacific), thence 
nearly due south, through Johnson and Hill 
counties, to Waco, in McLennan county , 
thence to Temple, near Belton, in Bell county, 
wliere it crosses the Gulf Colorado & Santa 
Fe Railroad, thence the line will be run to a 
connection with the International & Great 
Northern Railway, at Taylorsville, in Wil- 
liamson county. 

The International & Great Northern Rail- 
way, already completed and in running order 
some eighty miles South- West of San An- 
tonio, is pushing to Laredo, on the Mexican 
frontier, with great rapidity. The Texas & 
Pacific has reached the Pecos River, and is 
proceeding Westward towards El Paso at the 
rate of more than a mile a day. The Houston 
& Texas Central Railroad has completed its 
Waco Branch, to a connection with the Texas 
& Pacific Railroad at Cisco, in Eastland 
county. 

The Texas & St. Louis Narrow Guage, is 
running trains from Texarkana to Waco, and 
will be pushed Westward, to the Rio Grande 
frontier. The East Line & Red River Narrow 
Guage, is working on steadily AVest, has 
reached Greenville, Hunt county, and will go 
thence probably to Dallas. The East & 
West Texas Narrow Guage, is finished from 
Hoiiston to Moscow, in Polk coimty, and 
will be pushed thence to Marshall, and with 
its various proposed connections, will consti- 
tute a complete narrow guage system. The 
Gulf Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad, already 
completed some fifty miles North of Belton, 
is pushing forward in two directions, its 
branch on the East, running North from 
Temple Station, in Bell county, to Dallas or 
Fort Worth, where it will connect with the 
Texas & Pacific. Its main line on the West, 
projected through the counties of Lampasas, 
Brown, Coleman and Taylor, where at Abi 
lene, it will cross the Texas & Pacific;, on 
through the Panhandle, toward Santa Fe, 
New Mexico, its ultimate destination. 

The Texas Trunk is running from Dallas to 
Kaufman and beyond, and will push its line 
rapidly to Sabine Pass, on the (julf of Mexico, 
through the counties of Henderson, Ander- 
son. Cherokee, Angelina, Tyler, Hardin and 
Jefferson. The Chicago, Texas & Mexican 
Central are grading between Dallas and Cie- 



58 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



burne, in Johnson county, and surveying a 
continuance of tbeir line nortlieast to Paris, 
in Lamar county, and southwest toward 
Mexico. 

1^ Many other important lines are projected, 
Pmd some of them under construction, but so 
rapidly are these various enterprises being- 
constructed that it is difficult to keep up with 
them, and our design is only to indicate, in a 
general way, their magnitude and extent, and 
the bearing they necessarily have upon the 
rear future of our State. Already we feel the 
effect of the vast sums of money expended in 
their prosecution. Labor is in demand at 
high wages, trade in every department is 
stimulated, and the State seems to have en- 
tered upon an era of unexampled prosperity. 
The immigrant can now come to Texas with 
the certainty that remunerative occupation 
awaits him. Lands are cheap, wages are high, 
crops, the past season, have been abundant, 
and bread and meat are plentiful. 

The enormous extent of railroad building 
now^ going on in Texas has but one drawback. 
The scarcity of labor is being seriously felt in 
the interior of the State, and it is anticipated 
that great trouble will be experienced in work- 
ing and securing the present year's cotton 
crop. This condition grows out of the fact 
that the activity in railroad building now go- 
ing on in Texas draws labor from the fields, 
the price paid for labor by the railroads being 
highly remunerative. In many instances, 
farms are being deserted altogether, the labor 
thereon taking to railroad building. Unless 
an influx of labor can be obtained from some 
source, the present year's crops will be light- 
ened. As a whole, the prosperity of the State 
may not be injuriouslj" affected by this scarcity 
of labor, as the money paid out by the roads 
will cover all deficiencies, although in the 
matter of agricultural productions the State 
may not show up as well as it did during the 
past year. Of course, after awhile, the rail- 
roads will have to see to this matter of agri- 
cultural production. These roads must be 
made to pay. However, the outlook for the 
l)resent year is, that there is not labor in the 
country to cultivate and gather a cotton crop 
any where equal to that of last year. The 
railroads are absorbing everything. 

The first railway projected in Texas was the 
Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado (now ab- 
sorbed by the Galveston, Harrisburg & San 
Antonio Railway). Work was commenced 
on this road in 1852. By August the year 
following twenty miles toward Richmond 
were completed and in operation, but the Avar 
coming on some years later, all railroad build- 
ing ceased, until 1865, when, as stated above, 
only 330 miles were in actual oi)eration, and 
these so worn and dilapidated from rough 
usage and the lack of means and material to 
keep them in repair, that practically the}'' had 
to b(! reconstructed, so that railroad building 
in Texas may almost truthfully be said to 
have begun only with the close of the civil 
war in 1865. 

The following table exhibited the extent of 
railroad building in Texas at the close of the 



year 1880. Since that time to the present 
(August. 1881) there have been added about 
twelve hundred miles of constructed road, 
and building is now progressing on the vari- 
ous lines at an approximate rate of two miles 
per day. It may be safely estimated that by 
the close of the year 1881 there will be in 
operation in Texas not less than six thousand 
miles of railroad, twenty-seven hundred miles 
of which will have been built in 1881. A very 
simple calculation will show wliat an enor- 
mous amount of money has been spent in the 
State from this source alone : 

RAILROADS IN TEXAS. 1880. 



GrAGE. 


Road. 


lal 

O 


©■d 


standard. 


Houston & Texas Central & 


618 
608.81 

. 609.60 

233 

226 

203 

123.50 

108 

58.50 

64 

66.80 

41.50 

52 

50 
22 
39 
25 
41 
16 

15.50 
12 
12 
11 

7.75 
25 

None. 
12 

3,300.96 




'< 


Texas and Pacific 


160 




International & Great North- 


80 30 




Galveston, Harri.sburg & San 


18 




Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe.. 


115 
123 


standard. 
Narrow. 


East Line and Red River 

Texas and New Orleans. ....... 

Texas Mexican 


30.50 
None. 
5 


standard. 


Houston, East and West Texas 
Gulf, Western Texas & Pacific. 
Denison Pacific (West Branch 
Missouri Pacific) 


15 
None. 


" 


Denison & Southeastern (East 
Branch Mo. Pacific) 


31 


" 


Galveston, Houston and Hen- 
derson 


None. 


" 


Rio Grande 




•' 


Dallas and Witchita 


20 


Narrow. 


Montgomery and Central 


None. 


Standard. 
Narrow. 
Standard. 
Narrow. 

Standaid. 


Henderson and Overton 

Galveston, Brazos & Colorado. 

Waxahachie Tap. . . 

Longview and Sabine Valley. . 
Sabine Pass and Northwestern 


" 




East Texas 


6 


" 


Chicago, Mexican Central and 
Rio Grande 


None. 


" 


Texas Trunk 


12 




Totals 


662.80 



Texas is the tenth State in the Union in 
respect to railroad mileage, and considered in 
her relation to that gigantic scheme of rail- 
road extension, which has for its object the 
control of the carrying trade of our neighbor- 
ing Republic of Mexico, is assuming a vast 
importance. Situated, as she is, in an inter- 
mediate geographical position, across her face 
must necessarilly pass those great arteries of 
trade which will soon send the life blood of 
commerce from the east to the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia on the west, and the remotest regions 
of Mexico on the southwest. Much of that 
vast country, grand in its resources, no less 
than its extent, is undeveloped, shut out from 
immigration and capital, hitherto by the lack 
of transportation. 

But two lines of railway are competing in 
their race for Mexico. The Atchison, Topeka 
and Santa Fe liave reached El Paso, in the 
extreme western corner of Texas, connecting 
with the Southern Pacific at that point. It is 
now pushing southward into Mexico as fast 
as possible, for the rich trafiic of that yet unde- 
veloped country is a prize great enough to 
prompt the most strenuous exertions. In 
point of distance, however, what is known as 
the "Gould S3'^stem," by its acquisition of the 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



5» 



International and Great Northern Railway of 
Texas, gains an important advantage. 

That road has already reached a point 80 
miles beyond San Antonio, Texas. From 
that point the distance to Laredo, on the Mexi- 
can border, is about 70 miles, thence to the 
City of Mexico is less than 600 miles on the 
map. But the air line distance from the 
present terminus of the Atchison road to the 
City of Mexico is about 1,000 miles. If there 
be an advantage possessed by either road in 
avoiding rough country, that advantage must 
be greatly in favor of the Texas route ; but a 
much more important point as to possible 
^ rapidity of construction, is that the builders 
of the Southern line can commence on the 
Rio Grande and build both ways, thence as 
well as southwestward from San Antonio, 
while the Northern road can be pushed from 
one point only. And again, as to cost of con- 
structions the advantage will be very gi-eatly in 
favor of the route which can deliver its iron and 
heavy materials on the Rio Grande by water, 
while the Atchison road will be compelled to 
transport everything nearly 1,500 miles by 
rail, from the banks of the Mississippi to the 
starting-point of its Mexican movements. 
These advantages ought to be decisive. The 
Texas road will be completed to the City of 
Mexico years sooner than any other, and at 
many millions of dollars less cost. 

THE TEXAS AND PACIFIC RAILWAY AND THE 
COUNTRY THROUGH WHICH IT PASSES. 

When it first became apparent that the 
necessities of the nation would soon require a 
ir railway to the Pacific Ocean, engineers study- 
ing the geographical features of the country 
and the commercial necessities of the road, 
designated the 32d parallel of latitude as its 
proper location. Major-General, then Cap- 
tain Pope, an ofiicer distinguished for his 
scientific attainments, was placed in charge of 
the survey. After a thorough study of all 
the factors which entered into the problem, 
he fixed upon the 32d parallel as the best for 
the proposed road, and it has ever since 
remained the favorite route. Although other 
routes have been built and operated for years, 
each recurring winter demonstrates anew that 
near this parallel a road can be constructed 
which shall be free from the annually recur- 
ring vexation of snow blockade. 

And it is a well ascertained fact, that never 
will the American people possess a trans-con- 
tinental road, open at all seasons of the year, 
and fully adapted to all the growing necessi- 
ties of commerce, until the Texas and Pacific 
shall have been completed along the parallel 
indicated. A glance at the history of this 
enterprise will be interesting. 

In 1852 the legislature granted a charter, 
amended in 1854 and 1858, to what was known 
as the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 
with a grant of sixteen sections of land to the 
mile. This road was to begin at the State 
line, twenty miles east of Marshall, and extend 
westward to a connection with the Trans- 
continental, or. in case of* a failure of the 
latter to construct its line, then to build inde- 



pendently to El Paso. No part of this line 
was built before the war, and only twenty- 
two miles during that period by the Confede- 
rate government as a military expedient. On 
the 8d of March, 1871, the congress of the 
United States chartered the Texas Pacifi ' 
Railway Company, the name of which was 
changed to Texas and Pacific, granting the 
right of way through the territories. 

The initial points of this road on the Atlan- 
tic and Pacific slopes were respectively, Mar- 
shall, Texas, and San Diego, California, 
with El Paso and Fort Yuma as intermediate 
points. Texas approved this charter, so far 
as her own territory extended. In 1872 Col- 
onel Thomas A. Scott and his associates 
purchased all the chartered rights and fran- 
chises of the three roads, viz. : the Southern 
Pacific, the Trans-continental, and the Texas 
Pacific, uniting all under one and the same 
corporation, viz. : the Texas and Pacific Rail- 
way Company. During the long time that 
these companies had existed, they had built 
only forty-four miles of road within the limits 
of Texas. 

ITS EXTENSION. 

Its initia. point is Texarkana, a growing- 
and prosperous city on the line between Ar- 
kansas and Texas, and the southwestern ter- 
minus of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and 
Southern Railway. 

From this point two lines of the Texas and 
Pacific Railway penetrate the State of Texas. 
The Trans-continental division completed at 
present westwardly across the northern tier 
of counties, through Clarksville, Paris, and 
other growing towns, to the city of Sherman, 
a distance of 154)^ miles. This division is 
now completed from Sherman nia Whitesboro, 
Pilot Point and Denton to a junction with the 
Southern Division at both Fort Worth and 
Dallas. The main line extends from Texar- 
kana in a southerly direction through the citj^ 
of Jefferson to Marshall, seventy-four miles. 

From Marshall the Southern Division is 
completed eastwardly to Shreveport, in 
Louisiana, an old city of some 15,000 inhabi- 
tants, a place of extensive trade and one of 
the largest cotton markets in the South. From 
here the road is now being extended (under 
the charter of the New Orleans Pacific Rail- 
way) to the city of Ncav Orleans, distant about 
825 miles. Negotiations have just been 
effected which doubtless will result in the 
completion of this road within the next 
eighteen months to the aforesaid city, the 
metropolis of the South. 

From Marshall the main line of the Texas 
and Pacific extends westwardly through the 
important towns of Longview, Mineola. Wills 
Point, Terrell, the city of Dallas, Fort Worth, 
Weatherford, and on West. 

The road was completed to Fort Worth 
late in the year 1876, its terminus remaining 
here until May 1880. Construction is pro- 
gressing rapidly; grading on the fifth one 
hundred miles is far advanced; track has at 
this date been laid a distance of about 400 
miles west of Fort Worth, and is progressing 
at an average rate of more than a mile per 



GO 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES. 



<iay; and it is expected the track will be fin- 
ished to El Paso, on the western border of 
Texas, by 1st January, 1883. 

The rapid extension of the Texas and Pa- 

ific is opening up new and vast fields to 

enterprise, and is infusing new life into the 

country through which it is being constructed. 

THE GULF. COLORADO AND SANTA FE RAILWAY. 

In 1873 the enterprising citizens of Galves- 
ton felt that it comported with neither the 
dignity nor the interest of the chief seaport of 
the Gulf, to depend for all connection with 
the railway system of the country' on a single 
line of road. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa 
Fe was projected, with Galveston on tlie 
Gulf for its initial point, and Santa Fe, New 
Mexico, for its destination. Realizing the 
truth of the maxim that ' 'the gods help those 
who first help themselves," the projectors of 
this enterprise built, equipped, and operated 
the first sixty four miles before going into the 
money markets of the world for that aid 
which most roads ask before the first spadeful 
of dirt is thrown. The Gulf, Colorado and 
Santa Fe crosses from Galveston city, on 
Galveston Island, to the mainland, on a 
bridge two miles in length; passing through 
the rich bottom lands, it crosses and makes 
connection with the International and Great 
Northern at Areola. Maintaining the general 
direction to the west of north, it intersects the 
Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio at 
llichmond, in Fort Bend county. Next it 
m.ikes connection with the Austin branch of 
the Houston and Texas Central at Brenham, 
in Washington county. Then it again crosses 
the International and Great Northern at Mil- 
ano junction, in Milam county, and thence to 
Belton, in Bell county, where a connection 
will be established with the Mexican extension 
of the Missouri Pacific. 

At Belton, or rather at a station called 
Temple, six miles south of that point, the 
road forks, one branch going northeast 
through McClellan, Bosque, and Johnson, to 
Fort Worth, in Tarrant county, where it will 
intersect the Texas and Pacific, and establish 
a through connection to the north by that 
route and the Missouri Pacific road. 

The other fork will go to the northwest 
through Coryell, Lampasas, and other coun- 
ties in the direction of Santa Fe. This will 
be the main or trunk line of the road. It 
may be added in this connection that the 
Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe has constructed 
and is opc^rating 300 miles of road, and has 
all the financial arrangements made for the 
building of 180 additional miles, which will 
inchide the whole of the Belton and Fort 
Worth branch and miles on the main line 

INTERNATIONAL & GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY. 

The g(Mi{Mal course of this railway and 
branches is through the eastern and middle 
portions of the State. On this line are many 
of the leading towns of the State. The road 
was commenced at Houston early in 1871, and 
was known as the Houston & Great Northern. 
The line from Longview to Austin was called 
the International. Up to December, 1873. Ihf 



roads were owned by separate and distinct 
corporations. On the date named, a consoli- 
dation was effected under the name of the In 
ternational & Great Northern Railway. The 
following will show the present and prospec- 
tive length of the road: 

Miles in operation: Longview, in Gregg 
county, to Palestine, Anderson county, 83; 
Palestine to San Antonio, 201; Palestine to 
Houston, 152 ; Houston to Columbia, 51 ; 
Troupe to Mineola. 45; Phelps to Huntsville, 
8; Georgetown Railroq,d, 10; Henderson & 
Overton, 15. 

Total, 625 miles. 

Miles in course of construction, San Antonio 
to Laredo on the Rio Grande, about 160 miles, 
of which some eighty miles have been finished 
recently, leaving at the present time (August, 
1881) a gap of only seventy miles between the 
terminus and Laredo, most of which is graded. 

The connections of the completed road are: 
The Missouri Pacific at Mineola, giving a 
through line to St. Louis and the East; TexavS 
& Pacific Railway, at Longview and Mineola; 
Henderson & Overton Railway, at Overton; 
Houston, East and West Texas Narrow Gauge 
Railway, Texas & New Orleans Railway, Gal- 
veston, Houston & Henderson Railway, Gal- 
veston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway, 
Texas Western Narrow Gauge Railway, Hous- 
ton & Texas Central Railway, Texas Trans- 
portation Railway, at Houston; Houston & 
Texas Central Railway, at Hearne and Austin, 
Gulf. Colorado & Santa Fe Railway, at Areola 
and near Milano, and with the Galveston, 
Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway again at 
San Antonio. 

At Laredo, on the Rio Grande, it is designecl 
to connect with a projection of the line rua- 
uing thence to the City of Mexico. 

The extension to San Antonio was complet- 
ed about the 15tli of January, 1881. 

The present termini of the road are Mineola 
and Longview on the north, and Houston and 
.Jan Antonio on the south and southwest. 
The various counties through which this road 
runs afford all the varieties of Texas soil and 
climate. 

Through the timber belt, the advantages of 
loamy creek bottoms for cereals and cotton, 
and sandy hill soils adapted to fruit, are to be 
added to the facilities for building, fencing 
and fuel. Water in this region is generally 
more easily procured than on the prairies. 
The latter supply the most productive soils, 
however, as the counties along the line of this 
road from Hearne west give evidence. From 
this place to Austin is to be seen a farming 
country scarcely excelled in any part of the 
State for fertility, topography and beauty of 
agricultural, as well as plain, natural scenery. 

The region traversed by the eighty-mile ex- 
tension, from Austin to San Antonio, is re- 
garded by many as the garden spot of the 
State. In spil and scenery, it is of rare ex- 
cellence. The never-failing Blanco, Comal 
and San Marcos Rivers flow through this pari 
of the State, and furnish reliable water-power, 
now being utilized for flour milling and other 
manufacturing purposes. Through well-di 



TEXAS: HER RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES 



61 



rected efforts, this road has added largely to 
the population of the State, and now reaps the 
benefit of its policy in a fine class of farmers 
along its line, and several large towns, doing 
a heavy business, and among these may be 
named Palestine, the headquarters of the road. 

As to the extension: Leaving Austin, the 
line extends in a southerly direction, sixteen 
miles in Travis county, passing over an undu- 
lating surface, with a black, calcareous soil, 
well timbered, almost all the way, immediate- 
ly upon the line of the road, with live-oak, 
pin-oak, cedar and pecan, while broad rolling 
prairies spread out on either side of the tim- 
ber; the valleys being rich and productive, 
and the broken and hilly portion affording 
excellent grass for pasture. Limestone rock, 
of excellent quality for building purposes, ex- 
ists in large quantities, and not only many 
durable fences, but sightly and comfortable 
dwellings, are also constructed of this valu- 
able material. Persons seeking a healthy 
country, where stock-raising and farming may 
be carried on successfully, either separately 
or in conjunction, and at the same time hav- 
ing the facilities and advantages of a railroad 
and organized society, should not neglect to 
see this section. 
MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAT-THE COUNTRY 
WHICH IT TRAVERSES. 

By the recent consolidation of the Missouri, 
Kansas & Texas, and the Central Branch of 
the Union Pacific with the Missouri Pacific, 
this latter company is one of the largest in th(^ 
United States. It traverses Missouri from 
the east to the west, and from the northeast 
to the southwest, runs through Northern Kan- 
sas, through East Centre Kansas, and north 
and south through the Neosho Valley, throu^-]. 
Southwestern Kansas, and south through the 
beautiful Indian Territory to Denison, Texas, 
where it diverges, the Southwestern Branch 
running to Whitesboro', Denton, Fort Worth ; 
thence south through Johnson, Hill and M cLei i - 
nan counties to a second connection with the 
International and Great Northern Railroad, at 
Taylor, in Williamson county. It is already 
completed from Denison, in Grayson county, 
to a connection with the Texas & Pacific at 
Fort Worth, and is under contract the whole 
way from Fort Worth to Temple, near Belton, 
in Bell county; and grading and bridging 
rapidly progressing. 

The Southeastern Branch, from Denison 



to Greenville, in Hunt county, has re- 
cently been completed to its connection 
with the Texas & Pacific and the Interna- 
tional & Great Northern Railways at Mineo- 
la, in Wood county. The Missouri Pacific 
having leased the International & Great < 
Northern, they may now practically be con- 
sidered one and the same road, and two daily 
express trains are now run from St. Louis to 
San Antonio, Texas, by this line. 

By these connections of the Missouri Pacific 
with the International and Great Northern, the 
great sugar belt of Texas has an outlet to the 
markets of the East. The lumber region of 
Eastern Texas, the sugar regions lying south- 
west from Houston, and the te,eming fields of 
Northern Texas are brought into juxtaposition. 
The constant exchange of products arising 
from the tillage of the country tributary to 
this line of railroad, a country capable of sus- 
taining an immense population, and admitting 
an almost endless variety of productions, will 
yield a tonnage wonderful in its immensity. 
Along this line every variety of staple crop, 
from the cereals of the temperate to the sugar 
and fruits of the tropical zone, will find a 
genial home in the soil and a climate exactly 
suited to its maturity. 

But an equally important result is that there 
will be a direct line and immediate connection 
between the Red River and the Rio Grande. 

When this road is completed to the city of 
Mexico, which will be in the near future, this 
will be the principal avenue for the rich pro- 
ducts of Mexico, and will promote a com- 
merce with the neighbor republic of great 
value. It will be of immense importance to 
the stock-raisers of the great pastoral regions 
of Southwestern Texas, furnishing them with 
a direct through route to the markets of the 
East. It will bring to notice and development 
a vast section of the State which has hereto- 
fore been devoted to stock-raising, on account 
of its isolation and want of transportation. 

The country in Texas, traversed by these 
two branches of the Missouri Pacific, in con- 
nection with the International & Great North- 
ern Railroad, is one of enormous extent, and 
presents every peculiarity and advantage that 
Texas can offer, and every diversity of soil 
and climate. The immigrant coming into the 
State over this line, and traversing it through- 
out its extent, who cannot find an " abiding 
place," would be, indeed, "hard to please." 



»r 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Address of Col. Lang 5 

Advice to Immigrants 51 

Agriculture ,. . 51 

Area 



and 



Asylums 

Bees and Honey 

Cattle 

Cane, Amber 

Climate, Temperature and Rainfall 

Coal 

Constitution, Provisions of 

Corn 

Cotton 

l^ducation 

Features of State 

Finances 

Fish 42 and 

Flower Culture 

Fruits and Berries 

Fruit Culture 

Game Birds 

Game and Fish 

Garden Vegetables and Melons 

General Features 

Goats 

Grapes, Wild and Domestic 

Orasses, Wild 

Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad 

Health 10 and 

Historical Sketch 

-Hogs 

Homestead, Cost of making 

Homesteads, How to acquire 

Horses and Mules 6 and 

International & Great Northern R. R .... 

Introductory Statement 

Iron 

Labor : What it can do 



PAGE 

Land Titles, Origin of 15 

Land, School ; How Purchased 15 

Lawlessness, Is Texas a Land of 17 

Laws 16 

Livestock 29 

Missouri Pacific Railroad 61 

Northers 46 

Northwest, Winters and Crops in 56 

Oats 21 

Pecans 7 

Penitentiaries 45 

Planting Season 20 

Population , 5 

Potatoes » 24 

Poultry 42 

Products for 1878 — Amount 5 and 6 

Public Institutions 44 

Railroads 57 

Rainfall 47 

Renting Lands 52 

Seasons, Length of 49 

Sheep and Wool 31 

South- Western Imm. Co. , Purpose of 12 

Stock 6 and 29 

Sugar 21 

Taxes and Finances 16 

Temperature . 49 

Texas a Workshop for Man 54 

Texas & Pacific Railroad 59 

Timber 7 

Tobacco Culture 25 

Water Power 9 

Water Supply and Quality 50 

Wheat 22 

Wheat, Nicaragua — a Bonanza 24 

Wild Fruits, Nuts and Berries o . . . . 26 

Wool 31 



^^.. 




A 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



M 





014 647 2515 ^ 



